Publications on News Media

This section features selected Pew Research Center reports (since 2005) on the news media. Individual project websites contain more reports related to this topic. In particular, please visit Project for Excellence in Journalism, which conducts content analysis to examine trends in news coverage and aggregates data related to the news industry. Also visit the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, which examines the public's interest in the news and attitudes of and toward the press.

Cable Leads the Pack as Campaign News Source
Twitter, Facebook Play Very Modest Roles
7 Feb 12Cable news is now the top regular source for campaign news. The long-term decline in the number of Americans getting campaign news from local and network TV news, and local newspapers, steepened this year. Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are used for campaign news by a relatively limited audience.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gingrich and Romney Both Face Mixed Portrayal
24 Jan 12As Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney took their battle for the Republican presidential nomination to Florida for its Jan. 31 primary, both of them arrive in the state with portrayals in the news media that are almost equally mixed
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Economy Fades as Election Intensifies
19 Jan 12The weakening economy was the most-covered news story in 2011, but it has now been overtaken by coverage of the presidential campaign.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Campaign 2012: Too Negative, Too Long, Dull
‘Bain Capital’ Story Seen as Important
18 Jan 12Half of Americans say the presidential campaign has been too negative and 55% of the public describe the 2012 contest so far as dull. Nearly six-in-ten (57%) describe the campaign as dull.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Campaign 2012 and the Media
The Storyline Heading into South Carolina
18 Jan 12After winning the first two nominating contests, Mitt Romney is getting more negative news coverage heading into Saturday's South Carolina primary than he has at any time so far in the GOP race, according to the first edition of an ongoing analysis of election news by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

News Coverage Index: The Santorum Surge Story Comes True
4 Jan 12In the days before Iowans finally caucused, the news media were most focused on the shifting horse race that foreshadowed Rick Santorum's strong late showing, according to an analysis of the leading themes in the Iowa press narrative by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Year in the News 2011
Coverage of Economy and International News Jump in a Year of Major Breaking Stories
21 Dec 11This year, the faltering U.S. economy was the No. 1 story in the American news media, but 2011 was also characterized by a jump of more than a third in coverage of international news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How Mainstream Media Outlets Use Twitter
Content Analysis Shows an Evolving Relationship
14 Nov 11A new study of the practices of 13 major news organizations by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism and George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs reveals that these news organizations use Twitter in limited ways-primarily as an added means to disseminate their own material.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What the Public Knows - In Words and Pictures
7 Nov 11The Pew Research Center News IQ tests the public's knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news. The latest survey used multiple-choice items as well as photographs, maps and symbols in its 19 questions.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Tablet Revolution and What it Means for the Future of News
25 Oct 11Just 18 months after the introduction of the iPad, a new Pew Research Center study details the way in which the tablet is creating a revolution in how people get their news. About one-in-ten Americans now own a tablet, and more than half use it every day to read long articles as well as headlines.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Media Primary
How News Media and Blogs Have Eyed the Presidential Contenders During the First Phase of the 2012 Race
17 Oct 11Rick Perry received the most favorable coverage of any candidate for president during the first five months of the race, but now Herman Cain is enjoying that distinction. Meanwhile Barack Obama has had the roughest treatment, according to a new survey which combines traditional research methods and computer algorithmic technology to code the level and tone of news coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

GOP Candidates Hardly Household Names
Interest and Coverage On Par with 2008 Campaign
5 Oct 11Smaller percentages of Americans can name, without being prompted, the leading candidates in this year's Republican presidential race than in previous GOP races. At this stage of the campaign in the 1996, 2000 and 2008 campaigns, significantly more Americans could name Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and Rudolph Giuliani than they could for Mitt Romney or Rick Perry.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How People Learn About Their Local Community
26 Sep 11Contrary to much of the conventional understanding of how people learn about their communities, Americans turn to a wide range of platforms to get local news and information, and where they turn varies considerably depending and the subject matter and their age.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Press Widely Criticized, But Trusted More than Other Sources of Information
Views of the News Media: 1985-2011
22 Sep 11Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has been tracking since 1985.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Hispanic Media: Faring Better than the Mainstream Media
29 Aug 11Spanish-language media faces challenges -- such as an increasingly U.S.-born Latino population -- but it still tends to fare better overall than their mainstream English-language counterparts.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Assess Motives of the Norway Attacker
28 Jul 11Most of the posts in the blogosphere following the dramatic July 22 attacks in Norway that resulted in at least 68 deaths focused on passing along breaking news and facts, but the next biggest topic of conversation centered around the motives and ideology of the killer, Anders Behring Breivik.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

For a Second Straight Week, It's the Debt Crisis and Tabloid Scandal
27 Jul 11Two stories that have become fixtures in the headlines -- the deadlocked debt debate and the intensifying News of the World phone hacking scandal -- accounted for more than half of last week's newshole, relegating other significant events to secondary status in the media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Debt Stalemate Top Story, But No Surge in Public Interest
Many Say Illegal Tactics by U.K. Media Likely Also Used Here
27 Jul 11The debt limit was the top story last week for both the public and the news media, although public interest in the federal budget deficit and national debt is not much higher than it was the previous week despite the approaching Aug. 2 deadline for raising the ceiling.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Hacking Scandal Tops Twitter for a Second Week
22 Jul 11Nearly a fifth of the news links on Twitter were about the phone hacking scandal, making it the top story on that platform, although accounting for far less than the 53% of links the previous week. The new Google+ social networking site was the second most-discussed story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Debt Limit Fight Tops News Interest, Coverage
Public Sees Debt Debate as Important, Hard to Understand
19 Jul 11An overwhelming majority of Americans agree that the debate over the nation's debt limit is important to people like themselves (90%), while nearly seven-in-ten (68%) say it is interesting.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Washington Standoff and a London Scandal Lead the News
19 Jul 11The continuing drama over the debt standoff in Washington last week drove coverage of the economy to its second highest mark in 2011, eclipsing covering of the presidential campaign. Press attention to the scandal surrounding Ruper Murdoch's media empire doubled in the past week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Assessing a New Landscape in Journalism
Non-Profit News
18 Jul 11Institutions and funders have been moving to fill the gap being left by shrinking newsrooms by backing non-profit news sites. Roughly half of these sites produce news that is clearly ideological in nature.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Debt Talks and Suprise Verdict Top Media Agenda
12 Jul 11The Casey Anthony trial was the No. 1 story on both network news and cable news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs and Twitter Focus on Michele Bachmann
7 Jul 11Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign announcement created a major buzz in social media last. Most of the commentary was highly critical.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Interest in Campaign News On Par With 2007
No Partisan Gap in Attention to Campaign’s Early Stage
7 Jul 11While the focus this year has been on the GOP's race, Democrats express about as much interest in 2012 candidates as do Republicans.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama and Bachmann Drive Economic and Election Coverage
6 Jul 11The partisan differences stalling deficit reduction talks was the top story for the second week in a row, and coverage of the presidential race ranked second, fueled largely by the entry of Michele Bachmann into the race.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

By Nearly 3-To-1, Bloggers Criticize Obama’s Withdrawal Plan For Afghanistan
30 Jun 11Bloggers, last week, responded strongly to President Obama's June 22 speech about the U.S. role in the Afghan war, and, while half were neutral, negative comments outnumbered positive by a margin of almost 3-to-1.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Economy, Afghanistan Top News Interest, Coverage
29 Jun 11Americans focused most closely last week on news about the nation's struggling economy and President Obama's plans to draw down U.S. troops in Afghanistan, two stories that also topped news coverage last week.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Economy & Afghanistan Lead the News
28 Jun 11For Afghanistan to feature prominently in the news, the years have shown it usually depends on what is happening in Washington. Last week was one such week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Angry Bloggers Ask: 'Where's the Money?'
23 Jun 11The discovery that billions of dollars intended for Iraq's post-war reconstruction have gone missing generated a major-and largely partisan-outcry from bloggers last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Economy, Weiner Top Public's News Interests
Romney Most Visible GOP Candidate
22 Jun 11Mitt Romney is clearly the candidate the public says they are hearing the most news about, while mentions of Sarah Palin have plummeted over the past two weeks.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

GOP Contenders Grab Top Attention
21 Jun 11The Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire pushed campaign coverage to its highest level to date.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Twitter Talks Up Apple's iOS 5
16 Jun 11In the often technology-heavy Twitter conversation, no subject generates more consistent interest than the doings at digital media giant Apple.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Focused on Economy, Media on Weiner Scandal
Public Sees Too Much Coverage of Weiner, Palin
15 Jun 11Solid majorities say news organizations have given too much coverage to the Weiner photo scandal (63%) and to Sarah Palin's bus tour of historic sites (58%).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Weiner Scandal Tops the News
14 Jun 11Anthony Weiner's media coverage was more than double the attention devoted to President Obama.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Follow Palin's Road Trip
9 Jun 11It was Sarah Palin and her controversial "One Nation" bus tour that led bloggers back to politics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Number Hearing "Mostly Bad" Economic News Highest Since March 2009
Most Visible Possible GOP Candidates: Romney, Palin
8 Jun 11Not since March 2009 have so many Americans been hearing mostly bad news about the nation's economy. Romney and Palin have become the most visible GOP presidential candidates.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gloomy Economic News Tops Media Agenda
7 Jun 11The debt ceiling, rising unemployment and continued housing woes made the economy the week's No. 1 story, but the 2012 campaign continued to acquire more media attention.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Debate Prisoner Release Decision
2 Jun 11The Supreme Court ordering California to release thousands of prisoners due to overcrowding was the No.1 topic on blogs last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Closely Follows Midwest Storms
Oprah's Exit Widely Known
1 Jun 11The devastating tornadoes that struck Missouri last week dominated the public's news interest. Also, three-quarters say they heard at least a little about the end of Oprah's talk show.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Tornadoes Top News Agenda
1 Jun 11The deadly storms in Joplin, Mo., became the media's top story, and filled nearly half of all network television news coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Strong Support for Israel on Social Media
27 May 11A special edition of PEJ’s New Media Index examines the tone of the conversation on blogs, Twitter and Facebook following President Obama's address on the Middle East.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

IMF Chief Arrest: Media's Top Story Draws Little Public Interest
Widespread Awareness of Schwarzenegger's Troubles
25 May 11While the media devoted attention to the arrest of the IMF chief, the public had little interest. But a majority have heard a lot about Schwarzenegger's troubles.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

IMF Chief Arrest Leads News, but Politics Looms Large
24 May 11An alleged sexual assault with international ramifications was the No. 1 topic, but presidential politics -- with Trump and Huckabee leaving and Newt joining -- became a big story for the first time this year.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Continued Debate Over Bin Laden's Death and a Marriage in Tatters
19 May 11Shriver-Schwarenegger split rivaled Osama bin Laden death for top attention in blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Still Talking About bin Laden's Death
Trump, Gingrich Most Heard About in GOP Race
18 May 11While interest and coverage has waned, the bin Laden killing is by far the public's most talked about news event. Also, the 2012 campaign continues to get only modest attention, but Newt Gingrich's visibility has risen substantially.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bin Laden Coverage Changes Course
17 May 11The death of Osama bin Laden news narrative transitioned from dissecting the raid to more controversial topics, such as politics and Pakistan.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media React to bin Laden's Death
12 May 11The killing of Osama bin Laden accounted for 80% of the news links on blogs and fully half of the news links on Twitter last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Death of bin Laden: More Coverage than Interest
Many Say Osama Story Overcovered
11 May 11While the bin Laden's death attracted a near-record amount of news coverage, public interest has been comparatively modest. In fact, four-in-ten say the story has received too much media attention.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Osama bin Laden's Death Dominates the News
10 May 11The death of Osama bin Laden drove unprecedented amounts of coverage last week. On cable alone, the story accounted for a staggering 90% of the airtime studied.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Navigating News Online
9 May 11There is not one group of news consumers online but several, each of which behaves differently. These differences call for news organizations to develop separate strategies to serve and make money from each audience.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Media Have Covered bin Laden's Death So Far
5 May 11Contrary to what happens with most major national news events, the discussion of the death of Osama bin Laden in the mainstream and new media has not shifted quickly to political winners and losers. An analysis of hundreds of thousands of stories and millions of social media postings finds the discussion has remained focused on the facts of what happened.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tornadoes Lead News in Days Before Bin Laden Death
4 May 11In the week before the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the deadly tornadoes that ripped through the Southeast captured more media attention than the economy, Obama's birth certificate and even the British royal wedding.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Too Much Coverage: Birth Certificate, Royal Wedding
3 May 11Majorities of Americans say news organizations focused too much last week on both the royal wedding in England and the release of the long-form version of Barack Obama's birth certificate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bloggers Discuss Pulitzer Prize
Rumors Twitter May Acquiring TweetDeck is Top Tweet
28 Apr 11Many bloggers saw the award as a sign that quality newspaper journalism is not dead. Rumors that Twitter was in the process of acquiring TweetDeck was the top story on Twitter.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Modest American Interest in Royal Wedding
27 Apr 11The economy and deadly storms far outpaced U.S. interest in the coming nuptials in Great Britain and nearly two-thirds call wedding coverage excessive.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Trump Pushes the 2012 Race into the News
26 Apr 11For the first time this year, the 2012 presidential race emerged as a big story, driven in large part by the week's second leading newsmaker: Donald Trump.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs, Twitter Both Buzz About Steve Jobs Book
21 Apr 11The first authorized biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs captivated bloggers and tweeters alike, becoming one of the rare stories to figure prominently in both social media platforms in the same week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Trump Has Highest Profile Among Possible GOP Contenders
But Few Paying Attention to Presidential Race
20 Apr 11Among Republicans, 39% name Trump as the most visible presidential candidate -- more than all other possible GOP candidates combined. A majority of Americans, however, could not name anyone when asked which GOP candidate they have been hearing the most about.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Scores Budget Fight
19 Apr 11The high level of economic coverage on cable and radio news indicated how politically loaded the debate about federal spending has become. Neither elevated disaster ratings in Japan nor Qaddafi cluster-bombing civilians drew comparable media attention.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Japan, Global Warming Top Blogger Agenda
14 Apr 11Bloggers kept attention on Japan while renewing an old debate on climate change with focus on a once-prominent skeptic's change of position. Neither subject had much traction in the mainstream media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Tracks Both Japan and Shutdown Fight
12 Apr 11The public divided its attention last week between the threat of a government shutdown (a story with much media attention) and the ongoing crisis in Japan (a story with just one-fourth of the news coverage of the shutdown).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Government Shutdown Threat Shuts Out Foreign News
12 Apr 11The looming government shutdown became the first domestic story to lead the news in nearly two months. Rep. Ryan's budget drew attention and the Middle East remained in the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Five Myths about the Future of Journalism
8 Apr 11As media organizations plot their future, it's worth discarding some misconceptions about what it will take to keep the press from becoming yesterday's news. Here, in an aricle prepared for the Washington Post, are five frequent, if faulty, allegations:
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Stray from Big Media Stories
7 Apr 11Bloggers conversed about an eclectic mix of topics last week that were far from headline news on front pages or cable talk shows.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees Better News about Jobs, But Not Prices
Japan Disaster Still Dominates Public's News Interest
6 Apr 11While the public is hearing better news about jobs, news about prices (both gas and food) has become increasingly negative. Perceptions of the economic news vary along partisan lines, as Republicans offer a more negative assessment than do Democrats or independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Interest in Libya, Japan Begins to Wane
5 Apr 11The Middle East and Japan remained at the top of the media's agenda, but both stories have seen coverage fall as time has passed as interest in the economy resurges.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Remember Elizabeth Taylor
1 Apr 11Taylor's death received more coverage on blogs than any other celebrity passing, including pop icon Michael Jackson, since PEJ began monitoring blog content. On Twitter, the top subject was phone giant AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Lukewarm Public Interest in Libya
Public Focus Remains on Japan
30 Mar 11While the media pivoted to Libya, the public did not follow, keeping their focus on the crisis in Japan. Americans give the press high marks for their coverage of the Japan disaster and Libya conflict, but have little praise for media coverage of economics and politics.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Focus Remains Overseas
29 Mar 11The entry of the U.S. and NATO military forces into the Libyan conflict made it the No.1 story, surpassing the crisis in Japan. Altogether, 43% of overall news coverage this year has been devoted to international events -- nearly double the normal level.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Japan Crisis Overtakes Social Media
24 Mar 11The aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake in Japan was the No. 1 topic on blogs, Twitter and YouTube.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Most Are Attentive to News About Disaster in Japan
Public Focuses on Crisis at Nuclear Plants
22 Mar 11News about the aftermath of the deadly earthquake and tsunami in Japan dominated the public's news interest and media coverage last week. The crisis at Japan's nuclear plants -- far more than other aspects of the story -- captured the most public interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Crisis Coverage: From Japan to Libya
22 Mar 11As intense media focus quickly shifted from Japan to Libya late last week, it marked the seventh of the last eight weeks that overseas stories have led the mainstream news agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Twitter Responds to Japan's Disaster
17 Mar 11The response to the earthquake illustrated the different ways in which Twitter functions as a social media tool. Initially, the site served as a way to get breaking information from a variety of official and unofficial sources, including eyewitness accounts. It also acted as an electronic bulletin board. And once the scope of the catastrophe became apparent, Twitter became a place to raise funds for the recovery effort and express concern for the victims.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Strong Public Interest in Japan Disaster
15 Mar 11The devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan late last week dominated the public's news interest in the days following the March 11 disaster, pushing aside earlier interest in the fighting in Libya and confrontation over public employee bargaining rights in Wisconsin.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Dramatic Week Ends in Disaster
15 Mar 11The devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan late in the week overwhelmed earlier coverage of the Libyan civil war, passage of anti-collective bargaining legislation in Wisconsin and hearings on radical Islam.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Closing the Local News ‘App Gap'
14 Mar 11Local news is going mobile. Nearly half of all American adults (47%) report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphone or tablet computer. But just 13% of all mobile device owners report having an app that helps them get local information or news.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

State of the News Media 2011
14 Mar 11By several measures, the state of the American news media improved in 2010. After two dreadful years, most sectors of the industry saw revenue begin to recover. The biggest issue ahead, however, may not be lack of audience or even lack of new revenue experiments. It may be that in the digital realm the news industry is no longer in control of its own future.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Debate Budget Cuts
10 Mar 11Continuing a recent trend, blogs focused on hot-button domestic issues rather than Middle East turmoil, which has held the mainstream media's interest.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Uptick in Gas Prices Turns Views of Economic News Negative
8 Mar 11A growing awareness of bad news about gas prices has, at least for now, reversed Americans' more positive perceptions of economic news in recent months.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

As Gaddafi Clings to Power, Media Keep Focus on Middle East
8 Mar 11For the fifth time in the past six weeks, the situation in the Middle East was the No. 1 story in the mainstream media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Debate Wisconsin, Unions
3 Mar 11On blogs, a passionate debate -- clearly split along ideological lines -- raged over the role of unions in American politics and economics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Rising Oil Prices Big News for Public
2 Mar 11With the media fixated on events in Libya, the public focused on a related concern that received little news coverage -- rising oil prices.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Attention Turns To Libya
1 Mar 11The news devoted to the Middle East in the past five weeks easily exceeds any month of coverage of the Iraq war since January 2007.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs in Sync with Mainstream Media on Budget, Egypt
24 Feb 11Social and mainstream media were in sync last week as bloggers focused on two primary topics -- the U.S. budget and Middle East unrest.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Global Trouble Spots Top Public's News Interests
Strong Focus on Asia, Less Interest in Europe
24 Feb 11The public expresses far more interest in news from global hot spots, including Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea, than in news from many less troubled countries.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Religion in the News: 2010
Islam the No. 1 Media Topic
24 Feb 11Though still small in volume, mainstream media coverage of religion in 2010 doubled over the preceding year. Events and controversies related to Islam -- especially a proposed Islamic center in New York City -- dominated coverage, bumping the Catholic Church from the top spot.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public Focus Remains on Egypt
23 Feb 11As the media turned to domestic debates about the economy, the public continued to follow Egypt more closely than any other news story. Most Americans are aware of the attack on Lara Logan, a CBS correspondent in Egypt.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Budget Battles Lead the News
23 Feb 11Debate over Obama's budget and the protests in Wisconsin drove coverage of economic issues to the top of the media agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs, Twitter Decry Patriot Act
17 Feb 11Reauthorization of the Patriot Act led the conversation on both blogs and Twitter last week. And voices from both ends of the political spectrum were actually in agreement.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mubarak Leaves, Public Interest Surges
Little News Coverage, Interest in Campaign 2012
16 Feb 11Fully 48% say they followed news about Egyptian protests and Mubarak's resignation more closely than any other story, far surpassing the week's other stories. The 2012 campaign has gotten off to a much slower start when compared with the previous presidential election campaign.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mubarak's Exit Keeps Focus on Middle East
15 Feb 11Just as the media began to turn away from the story, the president of Egypt's resignation overwhelmed news coverage -- especially on cable -- with reports of the protests.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Consumed by Egypt News
10 Feb 11Bloggers were consumed with the upheaval in Egypt last week, using the platform to relay news updates, provide context to the crisis and debate the implications of the situation.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Now More Focused on Egypt, but Coverage Far Surpasses Interest
9 Feb 11The public's interest in news about the massive anti-government protests in Egypt surged last week, but did not keep pace with the growth in media coverage. About as many Americans (26%) say the story they followed most closely was the powerful winter storm system that hit the Midwest and the Northeast, a story that accounted for just 8% of news coverage.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Egypt Overwhelms News Agenda
8 Feb 11The events in the Middle East accounted for more than half of all news coverage. The saga is the biggest international story in the past four years, surpassing any coverage of Iraq or Afghanistan.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Egypt Uprisings Slow to Register on Blogs, Twitter
3 Feb 11The turmoil in Egypt did not register as a major social media topic last week. Blogs discussed allegations surrounding Clarence Thomas and Twitter focused on technology.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Limited Public Interest in Egyptian Protests
1 Feb 11The extraordinary anti-government protests in Egypt have drawn much more attention from the news media than from the American public. But interest is in line with other overseas protests in recent years.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

SOTU Overshadowed by Middle East Unrest
1 Feb 11While attention to unrest in the Middle East accounted for only 8% of the overall coverage early in the week, from Jan. 27 through Jan. 30 it skyrocketed to 36%.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

In the Blogosphere, Calls for Bipartisanship and Confrontation
27 Jan 11In the social media, the post-Tucson conversation was kinder and gentler; bloggers generally applauded a display of unity and bipartisanship.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Despite Media Coverage, Few Interested in Hu's Visit
26 Jan 11With continued interest in the tragic events in Tucson, the public made little time for other well-covered news stories. There was minimal interest in Chinese President Hu Jintao much debated visit, and half heard nothing about the celebrated bipartisan seating arrangements at the State of the Union.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Fallout from Arizona Shootings Tops Hu Visit
25 Jan 11Unlike past tragedies, such as the Virginia Tech shootings, the events in Arizona stayed squarely on the news agenda thanks to the prominence of Rep. Giffords and the many political angles; the visit by China's premier ran a distant second.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Watching Obama's State of the Union
24 Jan 11Most Americans say they plan to watch President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night. Still, a sizable majority sees the speech to Congress as no more important than in previous years.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How the U.S. Media Cover China
24 Jan 11 Before Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit, what events and issues have put China on the U.S. media’s radar in the last four years? (Hint: they're not usually related to the economy.)
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Follow Events in Tucson
20 Jan 11The shootings in Tucson that killed six and severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords drew more attention in the blogosphere than any subject in the past eight months.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Media Analysis: How the Press Covered the Tragedy in Tucson
19 Jan 11A discussion about the tenor of political discourse in America, including its role as a potential catalyst for violence, was the leading media storyline in the aftermath of the Arizona tragedy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bipartisan Praise for Obama Memorial Speech
Arizona Rampage Dominates Public's News Interest
18 Jan 11Among those who heard at least a little about President Obama's speech at a memorial service at the University of Arizona, 69% said the address was either excellent or good. By contrast, the response to Sarah Palin's comments about the shootings proved more mixed.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

New Congress, Same Divisions Online
13 Jan 11Echoing the mainstream press, the blogosphere focused its attention on the new, Republican-led House. Shockingly, liberals and conservatives had different reactions.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Fewer Hearing "Mostly Bad" Economic News
12 Jan 11Americans hearing mostly bad news about the economy has dropped to its lowest point since the financial collapse. Republicans, in particular, are much less likely to say they are hearing mostly bad economic news than they were a month ago.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Beltway Realignment -- and a Shocking Interruption
12 Jan 11Until the shocking weekend shooting of an Arizona congresswoman dramatically altered the narrative, the prospects of political conflict from a new Congress and changes in the White House dominated last week’s news agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Press Coverage and Public Interest
11 Jan 11The public tended to maintain its interest in major breaking news stories considerably longer than the press did. And the press tended to maintain substantially more interest in Washington Beltway controversies than did its audience.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Year in News 2010
Disaster, Economic Anxiety, but Little Interest in War
11 Jan 11A review of three different research efforts by the Pew Research Center finds the economy was the No. 1 story of the year, the narrative evolving but with a continuing undercurrent of apprehension. Other big stories: the Haitian earthquake, the health care reform debate, the Gulf oil rig explosion, and mid-term elections.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Economy Leads on Blogs
6 Jan 11New unemployment measures were the dominant subject among bloggers last week; the buzz among Twitter users was all about rumored Apple iPad upgrades.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Internet Gains on Television as Public's Main News Source
More Young People Cite Internet than TV
4 Jan 11Television remains the most widely used source for news, but it is less popular among all age groups. More people continue to cite the internet than newspapers as their main source of news, and for the first time, online news has surpassed TV news among young adults.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Online News a Winter Wonderland
4 Jan 11The first East Coast snowstorm of the season -- and complaints about the cleanup effort -- managed to surpass coverage of the U.S. economy in online news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public's Top Stories of the Decade -- 9/11 and Katrina
30 Dec 10The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 drew more public interest than any other story in the past decade. The 2005 hurricanes in the Gulf, high gasoline prices and the collapse of the economy in 2008 also grabbed overwhelming public attention.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs: [Acronym Deleted]
29 Dec 10WikiLeaks has captured attention on blogs in a way few stories ever do. But this week's online conversation mostly centered on the name of a CIA panel investigating the controversy, which resulted in an acronym commonly used in internet slang.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Top Stories of 2010: Haiti Earthquake, Gulf Oil Spill
21 Dec 10Two major disasters captured the public's attention more than any other major stories in 2010, but Americans also kept a consistent eye on the nation's struggling economy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Intense Economic Coverage Continues
21 Dec 10The tax bill drove last week's economic coverage, accounting for about two-thirds of it. A Virginia judge's ruling put health care policy back in the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Splitting Blogs Over Tax Policy
16 Dec 10Liberal bloggers split over the tax deal, while conservative commentators mostly applauded the agreement but gave little praise to Obama.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Closely Tracks Tax Deal News
14 Dec 10The debate over taxes and the economy grabbed the public's attention more than most Washington policy discussions. Republicans are more likely than Democrats or independents to say they followed news closely.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Weigh Tax Deal
14 Dec 10News coverage was dominated last week by the tax deal between Obama and congressional Republicans. The tax debate accounted for a whopping 77% of the airtime studied on the cable and radio talk shows.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs and Twitter Talk WikiLeaks
9 Dec 10WikiLeaks was a popular topic across social media, but while blogs stayed political, Twitter users focused on the technological and international aspects of the story. The death of actor Leslie Neilsen, drew equal attention on blogs.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees WikiLeaks as Harmful
8 Dec 10Most Americans following news about the WikiLeaks's release of classified documents about U.S. diplomatic relations see the revelations doing more harm than good.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

WikiLeaks Data Dump Drives News
7 Dec 10Attention to the economy reached its highest level in 20 months and a major document dump cemented WikiLeaks' status as a significant newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Deride TSA Security Measures
2 Dec 10Anger and frustration over the new TSA airport security measures boiled over on blogs, Twitter and YouTube.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Economy, Elections and Pat Downs
Most Aware of Stir over Energy Drinks with Alcohol
24 Nov 10While the economy and election continued to draw the most news interest, a third of the public followed the debate over airport screening procedures. Also, most have heard about the FDA's warnings about alcoholic energy drinks.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Security Stories: Economy, Airport Screening Top News
23 Nov 10Even with no major new developments, the economy remained the top story in the news. The TSA's air safety efforts also received heavy coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Global Warming Believers Rally on Blogs
18 Nov 10The recent rise in federal worker salaries took the No.1 spot in the blogosphere, but global warming was again a hot topic. For a change it was the believers -- not the skeptics -- leading the discussion.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Election Fallout Tops News Interest
17 Nov 10A stranded cruise ship vied for attention while most say they heard at least a little about the graphic warning labels for cigarette packages proposed by the FDA and a mysterious trail in the sky off the coast of Southern California.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama "Shellacking" Captures Coverage
16 Nov 10The media narrative last week portrayed a weakened president buffeted by events from all sides as the economy reclaimed the No. 1 spot..
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs: Don't Give War a Chance
11 Nov 10Online criticism of a David Broder column produced a kind of blogosphere bipartisanship and unanimity rarely seen on crucial political and policy issues.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Election Results Draw Big Interest
10 Nov 10Among those who followed election results the night of the vote, fully 91% did so on television while 28% tracked the returns on the internet.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Returns
10 Nov 10The culmination of the 2010 midterm elections proved to be the biggest weekly story in two years, filling 57% of the newshole.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Parsing Election Day Media
How the Midterms Message Varied by Platform
8 Nov 10In today's news landscape, both mainstream and new media sources shape the narrative. A new PEJ study finds that no single unified message reverberated throughout the media universe in the wake of the November 2 voting and what one learned depended largely on where one got the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

No Late Surge in Campaign Interest
More Hear about Marijuana Initiative than Stewart-Colbert Rally
3 Nov 10The public's interest in election news did not increase in the final days of the campaign, despite heavy news coverage. While most heard at least a little about the California proposition to legalize marijuana, a majority heard nothing about the Stewart-Colbert rally.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Midterms Dominate Coverage in Final Week
2 Nov 10The elections accounted for 42% of the total newshole, and filled a majority of the airtime on cable and radio.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogged Comments
28 Oct 10Tea Party favorites O'Donnell and Palin generated partisan reactions in the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Still More Interested in Economy than Elections
Mixed Ratings for Campaign Coverage
27 Oct 10The public gives mixed ratings to the media for the job they have done covering the midterms. Also, nearly half say the GOP will gain control of the House.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Ride Electoral Wave
26 Oct 10The midterms accounted for 38% of the total newshole, up substantially from 28% the previous week, and registering as the No. 1 story in all five media sectors.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Debate, Tweets Celebrate
21 Oct 10While bloggers concerned themselves with the charges of fraudulent foreclosure procedures, Twitter was immersed in cheers for the rescue of the Chilean miners.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Chilean Miners Captivate Public News Interest
Attention to Election News Jumps
20 Oct 10While the public appears increasingly attentive to election news, far more followed news about the dramatic rescue in Chile.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Coverage Splits Between Midterms and Miners
19 Oct 10An underlying theme of political coverage was that the 2010 campaign has been distinguished by a particularly pungent brand of politics. In contrast, the uplifting story of the Chilean miners
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Fewer Journalists Stand Out in Fragmented News Universe
More Expect GOP Takeover of the House
14 Oct 10No journalist is named by more than 5% of the public in response to an open-ended question. Also, more Americans now say that based on what they have heard or read, the GOP will win control of the House in November.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Blogging
14 Oct 10Each of the top five subjects in the blogosphere focused on the election or a closely related subject.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Midterms Coverage Doubles Economy Coverage
13 Oct 10The midterm elections have registered as the top news story for four consecutive weeks, and have accounted for fully a quarter of the overall newshole in that time, easily outdistancing the No. 2 story in that period, the economy, at 12%.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Take Test of Faith
7 Oct 10Pew Forum's religious knowledge survey was the No. 1 topic on blogs last week. A majority of bloggers celebrated news that atheists and agnostics scored the best.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Shifting Perceptions of Economic Coverage
Election Interest: Press Still Far Ahead of Public
7 Oct 10Perceptions of media coverage of the economy since October 2008 vary dramatically by party. Also, the press are still far more interested in the midterms than the public.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

For the Media, it's the Elections, Stupid
5 Oct 10The midterms were a quarter of the newshole last week, and have been the third most covered story of the year, behind only the economy and the Gulf oil spill.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers War over 'Obama's Wars'
30 Sep 10Many bloggers seized on a passage from Woodward's book to argue that the president is indifferent to whether America is attacked by terrorists again.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Elections: High Coverage, Low Public Interest
Few Have Heard A Lot About Stewart-Colbert Rally
29 Sep 10While most Americans have heard at least a little about a possible GOP takeover of the House, few have heard a lot about the GOP's "Pledge" or Stewart and Colbert's rallies in Washington.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Midterms Already Edging Out the Economy on Media Agenda
28 Sep 10The midterms dominated the news agenda for the second week in a row. The elections have been the top story for the last two months (edging out the economy), and attention will only grow as November nears.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tech Times: Media Coverage of Technology
27 Sep 10Much of the coverage of technology in the mainstream press split into competing story lines: that it makes life easier and that it is not secure. Social media, however, had a more positive focus on technological advancements. With regard to corporations, Apple was more covered than Google.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tech-Filled Tweets
23 Sep 10New developments in the online worlds of Twitter, Google, and Facebook dominated Twitter feeds last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How You Feel About Midterms Depends on Your Party
GOP More Engaged, Optmistic, Angry About Elections
22 Sep 10Republicans are more likely to say this year's election is more important than most and that news coverage of politics makes them angry. They are also more upbeat about their preferred candidates' chances in November than are Democrats or independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Midterms Top News Agenda
Christine O'Donnell the Week's Leading Newsmaker
21 Sep 10Christine O'Donnell, the week's leading newsmaker, fueled the biggest week yet for coverage of the midterms. The elections were the top story in all five of the media sectors studied.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Talk Iraq, Rugs
16 Sep 10One-quarter of the news links on blogs were about the war in Iraq. Nearly as many bloggers focused their attention on the new rug in the Oval Office.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Focused on Tensions over Islam
Partisans Divide over Media Coverage of Obama
15 Sep 10As the nation marked the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks last week, many in the public and the media focused more on current tensions over Islam in America.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Anti-Muslim Sentiment Makes News
14 Sep 10Coverage of a pastor's plans to burn the Koran and the controversy over the planned Islamic center completely overshadowed coverage of Sept. 11 commemorations.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Americans Spending More Time Following the News
Ideological News Sources: Who Watches and Why
12 Sep 10Americans are increasingly integrating new technologies into their news consumption habits. As a result, the average time spent with the news is as high as it was in the mid-1990s.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Views of Economic News Little Changed
Democrats See Their Party Retaining House Controll
9 Sep 10The public's perceptions of economic news remain mixed, but continue to be much more negative than they were earlier this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bloggers Debate Growth of Government
9 Sep 10Almost a third of the news links on blogs were to an article reporting that one-in-six Americans are on government assistance programs like Medicare.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hurricane Earl Spares East Coast, But Hits Media
8 Sep 10The huge storm triggered FEMA warnings, evacuations and at times, near apocalyptic media coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Continue Islamic Center Debate
2 Sep 10Bloggers on both sides of the issue took part in a discussion that was as much about the motives of those having the argument as the Islamic center itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Divided Over Tone of Mosque Fight
1 Sep 10Among those who see the debate as rude and disrespectful, most say opponents of the Islamic center are mostly to blame.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Politics Tops Media Agenda, Again
31 Aug 10The midterm elections led the week's news for the second time in three weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Debate New York Mosque
26 Aug 10Debate over the mosque controversy raged online again, but in contrast to last week, bloggers in support of the Islamic center lead the discussion.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

New York Islamic Center Debate Tops Coverage, But Not News Interest
More Republicans than Democrats, Independents Track Mosque Story
25 Aug 10More than four-in-ten Republicans (44%) say they followed news about the mosque debate very closely, compared with 28% each of Democrats and independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How the Media Covered the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster
25 Aug 10The disaster in the Gulf dominated the news for the 100 days following the initial rig explosion. A media analysis finds the mainstream press spent considerable time reporting from the region and humanizing the crisis.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Islamic Center Tops Media Agenda
24 Aug 10The controversy over a New York Islamic center dominated ideologically driven talk shows on both cable TV and radio -- but registered barely a blip in mainstream newspapers.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Not Neutral on Google
19 Aug 10Bloggers roundly criticized Google for seemingly softening its support of network neutrality -- the concept of treating all internet traffic equally across a network.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Many Say Coverage of the Poor and Minorities Is Too Negative
News about Whites, Middle-Class Mostly Seen as Fair
19 Aug 10Pluralities say that coverage of poor people and Muslims is too negative, while somewhat smaller percentages say the same about coverage of blacks and Hispanics. About a third say that coverage of wealthy people is too positive -- the highest percentage for any group tested.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Campaign Coverage Heats Up
Oil Spill Coverage Reaches New Low
17 Aug 10The midterm elections led the news last week. For the first time since the crisis began in late April the Gulf oil spill was not among the top three topics reported on in the media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Applaud Gay Marriage Victory
12 Aug 10More than a quarter of the news links on blogs were about the Proposition 8 decision. The commentary was overwhelmingly positive.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

More Hearing Good News About Gulf Spill
Views of Economic News Little Changed
11 Aug 10Perceptions of news about the oil leak have become somewhat more positive, while views of economic news remain mixed. About one-in-five track news about the overturn of California's gay marriage ban and the planned Islamic cultural center in New York.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Job Numbers Boost Economic Coverage
Gulf Spill Coverage Continues to Dwindle
10 Aug 10The jobs situation accounted for more than a third of all the economy-related news. Also, with little oil leaking, coverage of the Gulf reaches a low.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Technology Concerns Dominate Twitter
Chevrolet Volt Discussed on Blogs
5 Aug 10Two consumer-related technology topics dominated on Twitter last week -- privacy concerns on Facebook and user rights with Apple's iPhone device.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Journalism Jobs Harder to Find
5 Aug 10A University of Georgia survey of recent journalism and mass communication graduates finds toughest job market in the 24-year history of the study. Minority graduates have had an especially difficult time finding work. In regards to being prepared for communications work, graduates give their schools mixed grades.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mixed Public Reaction to WikiLeaks
Most Say Too Much Chelsea Clinton Coverage
3 Aug 10About equal percentages say the release of classified documents about the war in Afghanistan harms the public interest as say it serves the public interest. Most say Chelsea Clinton's wedding received too much attention from the press.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

WikiLeaks Puts Afghanistan Back on Media Agenda
Immigration Dominates Cable News
3 Aug 10The leak of some 90,000 classified war reports triggered a renewed debate over war strategy in Afghanistan. With court action in Arizona, the immigration debate dominated cable news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Discover, Discuss Altered BP Photo
29 Jul 10A blogger's discovery of BP's altered photo of its crisis center was the top story in the blogosphere. Also, many blogs linking to a column bemoaning the loss of the traditional newsroom agreed with the author.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Sherrod Story: Heavy Coverage, Modest Interest
More Now Say "Too Much" Oil Leak Coverage
28 Jul 10Despite heavy coverage of the Shirley Sherrod affair, the oil leak in the Gulf was by far the public's most closely followed news story.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Economy Still Tops News Agenda
Shirley Sherrod the Top Newsmaker of the Week
27 Jul 10For four days, Shirley Sherrod consumed 41% of the cable news airtime, helping her become the top newsmaker of the week. The Washington Post's series on gathering intelligence sparked a debate, and demonstrated a new media trend.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Story of Shirley Sherrod: Reconstruction of a Media Mess
How One Video Triggered a Rush to Judgment
27 Jul 10A media analysis of the Shirley Sherrod story traces how the story evolved and played out in the media in that frantic period between the July 19 release of the video and the July 21 apologies to Sherrod from Gibbs and Vilsack as well as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Media, Race and Obama's First Year
A Study of African Americans in U.S. News Coverage
26 Jul 10A year-long study finds that, as a group, African Americans attracted relatively little attention in the U.S. mainstream news media during the first year of Barack Obama's presidency -- and what coverage there was tended to focus more on specific episodes than on broader issues and trends affecting the lives of blacks generally.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Polls, iPhones and Panic
23 Jul 10Bloggers seized on Obama's poll numbers while tweeters took on Apple's newest gadget. Both social media tools took an interest in their online cousin: Facebook.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Hears Better News from the Gulf
Many Expect GOP to Take House
21 Jul 10Most Americans are hearing some good news from the Gulf. On balance, more see Republicans gaining a majority in House after the fall elections.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

New Hope for Containment Boosts Coverage of Gulf Spill
20 Jul 10Largely as the result of BP's most promising effort yet to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, that ongoing environmental disaster led the week's news, generating its highest amount of coverage in three weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Singe Teen Singer
15 Jul 10Both bloggers and Twitter users got caught up in an online prank played on a teenage pop star; Obama and the courts also drew attention online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Interest in Oil Leak Dips Along with Coverage
Too Much Lohan and LeBron News
14 Jul 10Large majorities say news organizations gave too much coverage last week to Lindsay Lohan's legal woes and LeBron James' announcement.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oil Spill Leaking Coverage, but Still Tops Media Agenda
LeBron James the Second-Biggest Newsmaker of the Week
13 Jul 10Despite a substantial drop-off in recent coverage, the oil spill remains the top story. LeBron James was the second-biggest newsmaker of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Little Gun Control On Blogs
8 Jul 10The online conversation was dominated by cheering advocates of a Supreme Court ruling in favor of gun rights, illustrating again how individuals who care passionately about a subject often come together quickly and strongly online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Increasingly Hearing Mostly Bad Economic News
Public Stays Focused on Gulf Oil Leak, Media Attention Divided
8 Jul 10Perceptions of economic news have turned much more negative in the past month, with news about jobs seen as especially dour.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Interest in Oil Spill Flagging
Kagan Deemed Not as Newsworthy as Sotomayor by Press
7 Jul 10Coverage of the Gulf oil leak has dropped by about two-thirds in the past several weeks. After a rare spike, Afghanistan news fell dramatically.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

McChrystal’s Comments Turn the Social Media to Afghanistan
1 Jul 10Blogs and Twitter followed MSM into Afghanistan, led by fired general.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public, Media Track Oil Leak, Diverge On McChrystal
30 Jun 10The public remained focused on the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last week, while the media divided their attention between the oil leak and controversial comments by Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led to his ouster as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Afghan War Tops the News, Edging out Oil Spill
29 Jun 10President Obama’s decision to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the top battlefield commander in Afghanistan, a move freighted with military and political implications, vaulted the war to the top of the media agenda last week for the first time in seven months.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Oil Leak Spreads Online
24 Jun 10Twitter's most linked-to news stories tended to be more about BP executives, while blogs linked more often to news about the oil spill itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees Right Amount of Oil Leak Coverage
World Cup Interest Low
22 Jun 10As press coverage of the oil spill continues to increase, most Americans say the media are giving the right amount or too little attention to the unfolding disaster. Interest in the World Cup is low but on par with past tournaments.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gulf Spill Goes to Washington
22 Jun 10As media coverage reached a new high, reports on the oil leak turned from cleanup, containment and impact to BP's role in the disaster and the government's ongoing response.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Press Covered Health Care Reform
21 Jun 10Media coverage of the health care debate followed a roller coaster trajectory, spiking dramatically at times and plunging at other points. The media focused far more on the politics of health care than the system or plans for reform.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Israel Defenders Join Middle East Debate on Blogs
Poll Generates Early Midterm Discussion Online
17 Jun 10For a second consecutive week, conflict in the Middle East led the agenda in the blogosphere. But in contrast to the previous week, defenders of Israel were the loudest voices.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees No Improvement in Economic News
Gulf Oil Leak Still Tops News Interest
16 Jun 10Most Americans continue to see a mix of good and bad economic news. The Gulf oil leak still tops news interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oil Spill Becoming One of the Biggest Stories of the Year
15 Jun 10The oil leak in the Gulf became the first story in 14 months to command at least 30% of the newshole for three consecutive weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Media Coverage of the Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal
11 Jun 10Newspaper coverage of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal grew more intense this spring than at any time since 2002, and European newspapers devoted even more ink to the story than American papers did.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Flotilla Furor Online
10 Jun 10The latest outbreak of Middle East violence triggered a passionate blogosphere response focused on who was to blame. Three out of the five most-viewed news videos on YouTube were scenes of the violence aboard the Turkish ship.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Trusts Media for Oil Spill News More than Feds, BP
Much More Interested in Oil Leak's Impact, Not Politics
9 Jun 10For information about the Gulf, the public has far more trust in the news media than in either the government or BP. Americans are far more interested in the environmental impact of the disaster than in the response of politicians or assessments of blame for the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oil Spill: Month-Long Top Story
Flotilla Incident Generates Most Israeli-Palestinian Coverage Since Gaza Fighting
8 Jun 10In the seven weeks since the explosion, the spill saga has come to overshadow every other subject in the mainstream news agenda, registering at 22% of the newshole for the period.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Remains Fixated by Oil Spill
Attentiveness Similar to Just After Haiti Quake
3 Jun 10The Gulf oil spill continues to grab the public's attention. Interest in the disaster rivals attention paid to the Haiti earthquake earlier this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs Poke Facebook
Apple Leads on Twitter Again
3 Jun 10Many bloggers felt the social networking site had misled them about how their information was being used. Twitter was dominated by Apple, again.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Unplugged: Media Attention to Spill Increasing
More Than Half of Television Airtime Dedicated to the Gulf Oil Spill
2 Jun 10Press coverage of the oil spill continues to rise (reaching a new high) as the oil continues to flow. As with most disasters, the Gulf proved to be, first and foremost, a TV story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Ponder Artificial Life
27 May 10As science tends to do, the creation of living cells controlled by synthetic DNA captivated blogs. A campaign ad for the Alabama Agriculture Commission became the most watched video on YouTube.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Not as Ready as Media for Elections
Americans Stay Focused on Gulf Oil Spill
26 May 10Perceptions of financial regulation are similar to views of health care reform last year: many say the issue is important, personal and interesting, but also hard to understand.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oil Spill and Primary Elections Top News Agendas
25 May 10Cable news devoted 33% of airtime to the elections, more than any other sector, while devoting 18% to the oil spill. In contrast, network newscasts apportioned their time in almost the reverse pattern: 13% to politics and 25% to the oil spill.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

New Media, Old Media
How Blogs and Social Media Agendas Relate and Differ from Traditional Press
23 May 10Technology makes it increasingly possible for the actions of citizens to influence a story’s total impact.What types of news stories do consumers share and discuss the most? What issues do they have less interest in? What is the interplay of the various new media platforms? And how do their agendas compare with that of the mainstream press? A review of a year's worth of data sheds light on these questions.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

On the Blogs, Across the Pond
20 May 10In stark contrast to the mainstream U.S. press, the blogosphere -- lacking geographic boundaries -- was consumed by the British election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Oil Spill Increases Hold on Public's News Interest
Kagan Nomination Draws Less Attention than Coverage
19 May 10While most are not following Elena Kagan, the public wants the press to focus on credentials, not personal lives, when analyzing Supreme Court nominees. Meanwhile, the oil spill continues to dominate the public's news interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Don't Leave Gulf for Kagan
18 May 10Elena Kagan's press lagged well behind the attention paid to Obama's selection of Sotomayor. The Gulf oil spill remained big news for the fourth consecutive week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blog Blame Game
13 May 10Bloggers searched for political villains in the wake of the oil spill and failed terrorist attack.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Oil Tops Terror in Public Attention
Media Focuses More On Times Square
12 May 10Americans followed the worsening oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico more closely than other major news stories last week, while the media focused on both the underwater oil leak and the investigation into the attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square. The public sees little change in the tenor of recent economic news.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Terrorism Tops Disasters
11 May 10Coverage of the Times Square car bomb attempt became the biggest single terrorism story since January 2007; Gulf oil spill coverage up but Tennessee flooding got little attention
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Aliens
6 May 10Debate over a visit to earth by alien beings was the only news item to receive significant attention on both the blogs and Twitter.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Oil Spill Disaster Has Public's Attention
Most Have Basic Knowledge About Spill, Arizona Immigration Law
5 May 10About eight-in-ten Americans know that oil leak is off the coast of Louisiana and that the controversial immigration law was passed in Arizona; less than half know about Charlie Crist.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Wall Street, Oil Spill & Immigration Uproars
4 May 10Fueled by a congressional showdown with Goldman Sachs executives, economic news led news coverage during a crowded week that also featured the uproar over Arizona's new immigration law and the developing ecological disaster in the Gulf Coast.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Eyjafjallajoekull Effect
29 Apr 10A good deal of the commentary included individual experiences from bloggers directly affected by the grounded fights. Plus, promiscuous clothing as cause of earthquakes.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Financial Regulation and Volcano Ash Grab Public's Attention
Public Sees Some Payback of Federal Bailout Money
28 Apr 10Most Americans say financial institutions have paid back "only some" of the money provided by the federal government to help them survive the financial crisis.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Economic Rally
27 Apr 10Fraud and possible reform on Wall Street generated the most economic news of the year. Heated cable news debate over Arizona's new immigration law made it a big story as well.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care Still Top Story, But Many Track Volcano
Awareness of Tea Party Movement Increasing
22 Apr 10Awareness of the Tea Party movement is increasing, but when asked to give a one-word impression of the group, a plurality of responses are negative.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Diversity Online
22 Apr 10While social media is often consumed by a single topic, the blogosphere has been split by three stories: Iceland's volcano, a Polish plane crash and Obama's press coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Explosive Coverage: Volcano, Nukes and Tea
20 Apr 10Mixed news on the state of the economy made it the No. 1 story, but a volcanic eruption, nuclear weapons and Tea Party protests rounded out the media agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hiding in Plain Sight: Kennedy to Brown
Press Coverage of the 2010 Massachusetts Senate Special Election
20 Apr 10A new media analysis finds that after months of little interest, polling, not reporting, was the focus of intense press coverage in the race to succeed Sen. Kennedy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Game Changer
15 Apr 10Bloggers uniformly condemned erroneous reports that Mattel was changing the rules of Scrabble as a signal of the dumbing-down of our culture. Outrage also ran high over Virginia Gov. McDonnell's Confederate History Month proclamation.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Tracking Health Care, Deadly Mine Accident
Many Say Press Is Too Tough on Tiger
14 Apr 10Americans continued to track news about the new health care law more closely than any other major story last week, though the media devoted the most attention to the deadly explosion in a West Virginia coal mine.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mine Disaster Dominates Discussion
13 Apr 10The accident and the ultimately unsuccessful search for survivors that followed drew attention across media platforms.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tomorrow's News
12 Apr 10Most media executives do not see a bright future for journalism. Still, newspaper leaders are more optimistic than their partners in broadcast. Finding revenue is a giant problem, but there is strong resistance to taking government or advocacy dollars.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Familiar Text: Health Care & Global Warming
8 Apr 10In a medium made up heavily of commentary and debate, some subjects refuse to go away.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Census in the News
8 Apr 10Stories about the 2010 Census account for a growing -- albeit small -- fraction of total U.S. news coverage.
Social & Demographic Trends

Public Remains Focused on Health Care Reform
News on Jobs Still Seen as Mostly Bad
7 Apr 10Close to half the public (48%) followed news about the new health care law most closely last week, dwarfing the 8% following the other top policy story, the economy, that closely
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Economy Tops Health Coverage
6 Apr 10For the first time in over a month, the U.S. health care system did not dominate news as coverage of the U.S. economy, fueled by an encouraging jobs report, topped the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Reform Overwhelms All Other Subjects Online
1 Apr 10After the vote, the discussion in social media began to focus on the tone of disagreements as much as it did on the reform itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

It Passed. So What's in It?
31 Mar 10Democrats and the affluent are more confident they understand the impact of the new law. Most Americans are turning to the media for details.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Reform Dominates News, Again
31 Mar 10The passage and signing of health care reform legislation was the top story in each of the five sectors studied with the media focusing on the substance of the bill's provisions as well as the politics of its approval.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Transforming Journalism: The State of the News Media 2010
29 Mar 10Never before has so much information been available to so many people. But what role will media play in its dissemination? Can legacy media adapt so that legacy doesn't come to mean extinct? A panel of experts discuss PEJ's recently released "State of the News Media" report.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Live News Event
26 Mar 10Watch "Transforming Journalism: The State of the News Media 2010" live at 1p.m. on Monday, March 29. The event, which is presented by PEJ, George Washington University and the Newseum, features remarks from distinguished panelists and speakers including Jim Brady, Tina Brown, Tom Rosenstiel, Susan Page, Charles Sennott, Vivian Schiller and more.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Reform Rankles Blogosphere
25 Mar 10What characterized the debate online was the passion of the opponents, who frequently charged that the legislation subverted the public's will.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Religion in the News: 2009
25 Mar 10Pope Benedict XVI, though he made no visits to the United States last year, was the subject of two of the top 10 religion stories, while the Obama administration accounted for three of the top 10 religion-focused storylines during the year
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

Public Critical of Media's Health Care Coverage
Democrats Increasingly Predicted Bill Would Pass
23 Mar 10On the day of the House vote, 62% said they thought the legislation would pass, up from just 43% last weekend. Many are critical of press handling of health care (details of the plan and the political debate).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Health Coverage: Politics Over Policy
Reform Effort Generates its Biggest Week of Coverage
23 Mar 10By a ratio of nearly three-to-one, stories involving the politics and strategy of the reform effort exceeded stories about what was actually in the bills.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blog of Rights
18 Mar 10Bloggers focused on a subject near and dear to their hearts -- access to the internet.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Legislative Lessons
Most Unaware of Votes Needed for Health Care Bill
17 Mar 10Most have heard something about partisan tactics on the bill, but only a third know how many votes health care reform will need in the next Senate vote.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Presidential Push Gets Press
Rep. Massa the No. 2 Newsmaker
16 Mar 10While Obama's advocacy for a vote kept health care the No. 1 story, Rep. Massa's unflattering publicity turned him into a top newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

State of the News Media 2010
15 Mar 10 Inside news companies, the most immediate worry is how much lost revenue the industry will regain as the economy improves. But the future of news depends on longer-term concerns. What are the prospects for alternative journalism organizations that are forming around the country? Will traditional media adapt and innovate amid continuing pressures to thin their ranks?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Gay Rights: An Audience Online
11 Mar 10While gay marriage accounted for less than 0.1% of the newshole in the mainstream press, it was the No.1 story in the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Post-Summit, More See Health Reform Passing
News About Job Situation Still Seen as Mostly Bad
10 Mar 10Belief that a bill will pass is on the rise, but still a minority opinion. Americans are still hearing mostly bad news about jobs.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

It's All Politics
9 Mar 10The media's agenda (health care, Sen. Bunning, midterm elections and political scandals) was centered in the nation's capital.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Food Fight: Blogs Talk Hot Dogs
4 Mar 10A proposed warning about the potential health hazards of hot dogs triggered an impassioned backlash among bloggers.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Focuses on Health Care and Olympics
Modest Rise in Expectation That Health Care Reform Will Pass
3 Mar 10Following the White House health care summit about a third of Americans think reform will pass this year, up from 27% before the meeting.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Summing Up the Summit
2 Mar 10The spectacle of a televised bipartisan meeting made health care the media's top story, especially on partisan talk shows.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The New News Landscape: Rise of the Internet
Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
1 Mar 10The overwhelming majority of Americans use multiple platforms to get news, and the internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a platform, ranking just behind TV. News is also becoming more of a shared experience. More than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in emails.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

"Climate-Gate" Re-Ignites the Blogosphere Debate
25 Feb 10Blogs once again fixated on one of its most popular topics, global warming, following a BBC interview with Phil Jones, the scientist at the center of the so-called "Climate-gate" controversy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Millennials, Media and Information
24 Feb 10At a conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010, Pew Research Center analysts and outside experts discussed research findings about the Millennial generation, the American teens and twenty-somethings now making the passage into adulthood. In this second of three sessions experts on media and technology examine how Millennials are seeking, sharing and creating information.
Pew Research Center

Sports Centered
Winter Olympics Tops Public's News Interests
24 Feb 10The Winter Olympics proved to be the public's top story, while Americans' favorite water-cooler topic was Tiger Woods.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

In a Diverse Week, Stimulus Debate Drives the News
23 Feb 10Fueled by the one-year anniversary of the economic stimulus package, the U.S. economy led the news agenda last week, topping the Olympics, Afghanistan, Bayh, Stack and Woods.
Pew Research Center

Bloggers to Content Providers: Keep It Free or We Will Flee
18 Feb 10Social media last week dove into the debate over free versus pay online content. Sparked by Warner Music's plan to favor Web sites that charge users, bloggers answered in force: We oppose it! Google Buzz also drew bad buzz.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Haiti, Snowstorms, Economy Vie for Public's Attention
17 Feb 10Seven-in-ten say the media gave the right amount of coverage to the fierce winter snow storms that hit the East Coast and the South.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blizzard of Snow Coverage
17 Feb 10Debates over government efficiency and climate change joined more traditional coverage of local correspondents battling the elements.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Press Hot-Button Topics
Abortion and Gay Rights Talk Online
12 Feb 10The conversation online focused on Tim Tebow's anti-abortion commercial and gay rights -- with John McCain and the pope targeted for criticism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Surplus of Deficit Coverage
11 Feb 10For the first time in nearly two months, coverage of the economy led the news agenda, driven by Obama's release of his $3.8 trillion budget.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Strong Public Interest in Haiti Aftermath
Press Gets Good Marks For Covering Toyota Troubles
11 Feb 10Controversial topics at home -- Toyota's recall, gays in the military, the Tea Party convention -- could not compete with devastation abroad for the public's attention.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Monkey Business Online
4 Feb 10Apple's new iPad and a film shot by chimpanzees beat out the president's speech in social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Haiti Remains Public's Main Concern
3 Feb 10While the media focus shifted to Obama and his speech before Congress, public attention remained on Haiti.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

SOTU Puts Obama Center Stage
2 Feb 10The president was the predominant figure in more stories last week than at any time since his inauguration.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Twitter And YouTube Continue Focus On Haiti While Blogs Move On
28 Jan 10After playing a large role in promoting activism and fundraising in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, various components of the social media community moved in different directions last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care Reform Now Seen on Life Support
Public Still Following Haiti News Closely
26 Jan 10The public’s take on the chances that health care legislation will be enacted this year shifted dramatically after Scott Brown’s Jan. 19 victory in Massachusetts. About two-thirds (67%) now say they do not think a health care reform bill will be passed into law this year.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Cable Nets Split on Haiti and Politics
26 Jan 10CNN, which doesn't air ideologically oriented talk shows in prime time, broadcast almost three times as many stories originating from Haiti as did Fox News and MSNBC combined, both of which focused on the Massachusetts election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Provide First-Hand Accounts, Direct Action on Haiti
21 Jan 10New media not only reported on Haiti, but were used as calls to action. According to CNN, the use of social media helped raise $8 million by the end of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Haiti Dominates Public's Consciousness
Nearly Half Have Donated or Plan to Give
20 Jan 10Not only is the public closely tracking news from Haiti, 18% report they or someone in their household made a donation to those affected by the earthquake -- many using the internet or other technology -- while another 30% say they plan to donate. The Obama administration gets high marks for its response to the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blog Love, Not War
Social Media Talk Sex and Dating More Than Terrorism
14 Jan 10As the mainstream media were consumed with issues of terrorism, social media debated sex and dating.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Despite Media Attention, Terrorism Does Not Top the Public's News Agenda
Health Care Still the No.1 Story
13 Jan 10Health care, winter weather and the economy were all just as big a story to Americans as the much-hyped terrorist attempt.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

From Detroit to Yemen, Terror Tops the News
12 Jan 10More than eight years after 9/11, the ability of a terrorist attack -- even a failed one -- to transform and dominate the news landscape was evident last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How News Happens--Still
A Study of the News Ecosystem of Baltimore
11 Jan 10With questions about the future of journalism, a new study of the media in Baltimore, Md., examines who really reports the news that people get about their communities. Despite a rapidly expanding landscape, newspapers still drive stories.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Botched Terror Attack Big News on Blogs, Too
7 Jan 10In a rare occurrence, three central elements of today's news ecosystem -- mainstream media, blogs and Twitter -- agreed on the biggest story of the week, in this case, the failed Christmas Day terror attempt.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Terrorism Returns to the News
5 Jan 10The attempt to blow up NWA Flight 253 was the top story in newspapers, evolving from coverage of the attack to domestic politics and questions about Yemen.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Holiday Haranguings
31 Dec 09The continuing health care debate, and an insurgent campaign for the top of the British pop charts were at the center of social media commentary.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Stories of 2009: Public vs. Press
29 Dec 09The media's top stories generally reflected the public's top interests, but the press gave more coverage to politics (Kennedy's death, Palin's book, Specter's switch) than the public was willing to follow.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

More Now Think Health Care Reform Will Pass
22 Dec 09Americans continued to follow the health care debate more closely than any other news story last week, and the public gave the odds of a reform bill ultimately being passed the most positive assessment in two months of tracking.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

No Denying the Heat of Global Warming Debate in the Blogosphere
17 Dec 09Climate change received more attention online than any other subject in a given week this year. Much of the added fuel came from global warming believers who joined a debate that had been dominated by skeptics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Reform Still Hard to Understand
16 Dec 09Despite being the public's top story, most Americans are still confused by the health care debate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Debate Climate Change
15 Dec 09The press used "Climate-gate" and Copenhagen as sparks to question the science of global warming, giving the topic by far its most coverage since PEJ began tracking the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Minarets, Climate Controversies Online
10 Dec 09Arguments over Switzerland's banning the building of minarets and a continuing debate over climate change filled blogs last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Follows War, Talks Tiger
10 Dec 09While far fewer say they followed news about the golfer than about the troop decision, as many people say they talked with friends about Tiger Woods' troubles as about Afghanistan.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Surge in Afghanistan Coverage
Woods and the Salahis Well Below War on News Agenda
8 Dec 09The war in Afghanistan, as was the case with coverage of Iraq, is a bigger story when it is more a domestic political story than one about combat. Also, morning shows propel Woods and the Salahis to the top of the news agenda, but well below the war.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Media Coverage of Hispanics
7 Dec 09A six-month media analysis finds little coverage of the Latino community outside of major events, with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor by far the the biggest storyline. Immigration was featured in fewer than one-in-ten stories about Hispanics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Find Fox News Story on SEALs
3 Dec 09A report about the court martial of three Navy SEALs, little covered in the mainstream press, dominated conversation online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Few in Public Follow Palin Closely
Health Care Remains Viewers' Top Story
25 Nov 09Most Americans (52%) say they have been hearing too much about Palin, far more than said so after her resignation in July (38%).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Hardly Rogue: Press Follows Palin
24 Nov 09The former Alaskan governor's book tour trailed only health care and the economy in media attention, and was especially well received in the talk show world.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care and Fort Hood Stir Passions
19 Nov 09The tone and tenor of the online conversation in many ways mirrored that of talk radio and cable television last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What the Public Hears About Health Care
19 Nov 09Debate over the public option has been more visible than any other specific element of reform. While few have heard how reform would be paid for, many more have heard about its cost.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Shooter's Past Creates More News
17 Nov 09Unlike previous violent crimes that dominated media attention, the coverage and debate over the shooting at Fort Hood did not dissipate in its second week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Fort Hood: The Online Conversation
12 Nov 09The shooting highlighted the emerging role of social media -- particularly Twitter -- in producing instantaneous accounts of breaking news events.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Shootings Seize Public's Attention
Americans Continue to Say Health Care Reform Will Pass
11 Nov 09Public attention to the Fort Hood shootings is on par with the tragedy in Virginia Tech. Despite media coverage, election results don't generate much interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Shooting Shakes Up Media Stories
10 Nov 09The Fort Hood attack was primarily a television story, with some cable news shows quickly turning the shootings into a kind of wedge issue.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Express Outrage Over Assault
5 Nov 09Many commentators put as much blamed the bystanders to the crime, and American society and culture, as those who actively participated.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Swine Flu Interest Outpaces Coverage
68% Hearing "Mostly Bad News" about Jobs
5 Nov 09The public's impression of economic news remains mixed at best, with 68% hearing "mostly bad news" about jobs.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Not Much New News
3 Nov 09For the fourth week in a row, health care, Afghanistan and the economic crisis accounted for roughly 40% of the newshole.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Partisanship and Cable News Audiences
30 Oct 09In recent years, Republican viewers have migrated increasingly to Fox News but Democrats comprise a larger share of the Fox News audience than Republicans do of CNN's audience.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How the Public Judges News Network Ideology
Swine Flu Tops Weekly News Interest
29 Oct 09The perception of Fox News as mostly conservative is shared across news audiences, but Fox News viewers are more likely to see the other cable and network stations as mostly liberal.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Float On: Balloon Boy Still King Online
Global Warming Skeptics Find Big Audience on Blogs
29 Oct 09Anger over the drama surrounding Falcon Heene lived on in the blogs. Meanwhile, those on Twitter celebrated the five billionth tweet.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bonus Coverage
White House vs. Fox is a Top Story
27 Oct 09Anger over Wall Street compensation brought the economy back onto the media's radar. Also, Obama versus Fox News made news on all outlets.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Social Media Float in Thin Air
Global Warming and Balloon Boy Take Up Online Talk
22 Oct 09While blogs filled with global warming skepticism, the rest of social media tweeted about Balloon Boy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Finds Afghanistan News Unchanging, Hard to Follow
Growing Number Expects Health Care Bill to Pass
22 Oct 09As interest in the war remains modest, most Americans are unable to correctly estimate the number of U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan. Also, a majority now expects health care reform to pass.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Balloon Boy Takes Media for a Ride
Snowe Day Puts Health Care News Atop Media Agenda
20 Oct 09While votes and arguments about health care lead the media agenda for the full week, the story of an empty balloon was the No. 1 topic from Thursday on.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Email, Nobel and Dave
15 Oct 09News of an email scam that compromised thousands of passwords animated the blogosphere until late in the week, when the focus shifted abruptly to Barack Obama’s surprising Nobel Peace Prize. On YouTube, a Letterman mea culpa drew the most hits.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Swine Flu News Gets a Shot in the Arm
Fewer than Half Would Get Vaccine
15 Oct 09Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say the media are overstating the danger of the swine flu and that they would not get vaccinated.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Afghanistan No Longer a Forgotten War
Coverage Focused on Internal Debate Over Troops Levels
14 Oct 09After years of being ignored by the media -- the war accounted for only 1% of the newshole in 2008 -- Afghanistan has emerged atop the news agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Celebrity Jeopardy: Blogs Talk Polanski
8 Oct 09The Roman Polanski saga generated three times the news links as did the second-largest story in the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mother Nature Makes News
8 Oct 09A trio of tragedies -- a typhoon, a tsunami and an earthquake -- combined to make Sept. 28-Oct. 4 the second-biggest week of natural disaster coverage in 2009, confirming again the tendency of network newscasts to devote significant coverage to such disasters. An interactive feature charts media coverage of these and other disasters of recent years.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Renews Rx for Health Care News
Debate Still Interesting and Important, but also Hard to Follow
8 Oct 09Health care has been the public's top story for weeks, and few say it has received too much media coverage. But a large majority still finds the topic hard to understand.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Fan Olympic Flame
Foreign Affairs Stay in the News
6 Oct 09Obama's decision to lobby directly to bring the games to Chicago provided grist for the partisan Washington mill last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Covering the Great Recession
How the Media Have Depicted the Economic Crisis
5 Oct 09The gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression has been covered in the media largely from the top down, told primarily from the perspective of the Obama administration and big business.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Strong Support For Watchdog Role, Despite Public Criticism Of News Media
2 Oct 09The percentage of Americans saying that press criticism of political leaders keeps them honest is nearly as high now as it was in the 1980s, when views of the media were far less negative than they are today.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blogs: Under the Table and Screaming
1 Oct 09Rants about troop levels in Afghanistan and Dave Matthews’s comments about the element of racism in opposition to Obama dominated the blogosphere.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Media Have Less Influence on Views about Health Care, Economy
Health Care Debate Continues to Top News Interest
30 Sep 09News outlets play much less of a role in shaping views of health reform and the economy -- where personal experiences are an important factor -- than they do on environmental issues and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Foreign Policy at the Forefront
Health Care Coverage Falls Off
30 Sep 09Taking a detour from the health care debate, the media moved to foreign affairs, covering the UN and continuing their recent scrutiny of Afghanistan.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Where the News Comes From -- And Why It Matters
25 Sep 09Newspapers are still the largest originating, gathering source of real news; the crisis they face is not loss of audience but loss of revenue.
Pew Research Center

Blogs Focus on Obama Critics
24 Sep 09Online, three storylines dominated a week spent in large part in assessing the president's standing with the American public.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Little Evidence of Obama Overexposure
Wide Partisan Gap in Awareness of ACORN Scandal
23 Sep 09The number of Americans hearing "too much" about the president has not increased during his push for health care.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Race Captures Media Coverage
22 Sep 09From early February through mid-September, Obama's race was a significant factor in only 1% of the stories in which he was a lead newsmaker. Last week, his race was a significant element in fully 25% of the stories in which he was the prominent figure.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Giant Rat, GOP Outburst Online
17 Sep 09The blogosphere's attention was evenly split between the discovery of a new giant rat species and Rep. Joe Wilson.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care Debate Seen as "Rude and Disrespectful"
Debate Continues to Dominate Public Interest
16 Sep 09Health care reform has been the dominant news story since late July, but it now has a 29-point advantage over the second most closely followed story. But most Americans say the tone of the debate has been negative.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

'You Lie' Gets Healthy Coverage
Seventh Time in Eight Weeks Health Care is No. 1 Story
15 Sep 09Analysis of Obama's speech and Wilson's outburst together accounted for nearly half of the news about health care .
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two-Decade Low
Public Evaluations of the News Media: 1985-2009
14 Sep 09Just 29% of Americans now say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Column Puts Afghanistan in Blogosphere
Disney Buying Marvel Comics was No. 2 Online
10 Sep 09George Will's article was a catalyst for online comment. Disney buying Marvel Comics also consumed blogs.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What’s News? Depends Where You Look
Health Care Remains Overall Top Story
9 Sep 09Newspapers (economy), network news (California wildfires), online news (Afghanistan) and cable news (health care debate) all featured different top stories last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Most Plan to Watch Obama Speech
Health Care Reform Interesting, but Hard to Understand
8 Sep 09Interest in health care reform remains extremely high, but two-thirds continue to say the issue is hard to understand.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Kennedy Condolences Dominate Blogs
3 Sep 09Posts on Kennedy were predominantly about sharing emotions and memories, creating a sense of collective tribute.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Worried, Informed About H1N1
Health Care Remains Public's Top Story
3 Sep 09Most Americans are confident in the government's ability to deal with the swine flue, less trust the media to accurately report on it.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Kennedy Gets Spotlight One Last Time
1 Sep 09The media took a break from health care and other stories to pay tribute and to debate the legacy of Teddy Kennedy.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Offbeat: Zombies and Cocaine on Blogs
27 Aug 09Health care couldn't compete online with research studies about a zombie attack and cocaine on U.S. currency.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

International Stories Don't Register
Public Takes Note of Swine Flu Vaccine
26 Aug 09While health care is the public's top story, as many heard about Brett Farve as protesters bringing guns to town halls. Most heard news about the availability of swine flu vaccines.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Focus Turns to Health Care Scorecard
Afghanistan Has Eclipsed Iraq as Focus of International Attention
25 Aug 09A growing consensus that Obama was losing the political-message battle permeated coverage. Also, Afghanistan received three times the press of Iraq in the last three weeks.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care Shouting Moves to Blogs
20 Aug 09Liberal bloggers accused conservatives of spreading fear and falsehoods, while conservatives asserted that liberals were hiding their real goal -- a government-dominated system.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Death Panels Live On With Fox Viewers
Fewer See Press as Fair to Obama
20 Aug 09Regular viewers of Fox News Channel are far more likely than viewers of other cable news channels and nightly network news to say claims of death panels are true.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Confrontational Health Care Coverage
18 Aug 09Cable news became ground zero for town hall "ruckus" as death threats, swastikas and comparisons with Nazi Germany became part of the media narrative.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Echo Chamber: Tweeting About Twitter
13 Aug 09The attention given online to the outage over Twitter's momentary shutdown speaks to a popular theme in new media -- social media talking about social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Americans Hear Improvement in Tone of Economic News
Health Care Town Halls Register Widely
12 Aug 09Americans are hearing better news coverage about financial markets, real estate and prices. Also, as the health care debate tops interest, town hall protests register widely, with a majority calling the behavior appropriate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Measuring Media: Faith-Based Initiative
12 Aug 09While Obama adopted much of the program put into place by Bush, it has generated little of the contentious press coverage sparked by his predecessor's effort.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care News Heats Up
11 Aug 09Despite falling off in other media sectors, health care stayed atop the news agenda due to overwhelming, and partisan, talk-show coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Chew Over Food and Health while Iran Surges on Twitter
6 Aug 09While the mainstream media focused on the health care reform battle, the blogosphere highlighted two stories about food, and Iran updates dominated Twitter.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Many Fault Media Coverage of Health Care Debate
6 Aug 09As the fight in Washington over health care reform continues to dominate public attention and media coverage, most Americans are critical of the way news organizations are explaining key elements of the debate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Healthy Debate
"Birther" Controversy Cracks Mainstream Media Agenda
4 Aug 09With the talk shows leading the way, the increasingly polarizing health care story stayed firmly atop the news agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Bloggers Seize on Obama's Slipping Poll Numbers
30 Jul 09At the six-month point of Barack Obama's term, conservative bloggers drove a discussion of what they saw as Obama struggling politically, perhaps for the first time in his presidency. Dr. Who's new costume and a library book fight topped the Gate's story in online attention-getting.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Care Tops Interest
30 Jul 09The debate over health care reform has become the public's top story. The Gate's controversy draws more interest than other recent stories about race.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Political Fight is Good Media Medicine
But Knocked Off by Gates by Week's End
28 Jul 09As health care reform evolved from a discussion of policy minutiae to a political fight media coverage soared, especially in debate-driven radio and cable news. Still, it couldn't compete with a story about race later in the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Palin, Cats, Robots ... and Iran
23 Jul 09Once again, the online media's news agenda didn't quite match the mainstream media's.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Health Reform Interests but Confuses Public
Rising Criticism of Government's Handling of the Economy
22 Jul 09Nearly all Americans say health care reform is important, and most even consider the debate interesting rather than boring. But many are also confused by it, and want more news coverage. Also, Americans have grown more critical of the government's handling of the economy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

For Sotomayor, No News is Still News
21 Jul 09Today's coverage may be as much a function of where journalists are assigned as what really happens there.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Lipstick, White Gloves...and Iran
16 Jul 09The mixed news agenda in the blogosphere more closely resembled that of the mainstream media last week. But tweets continued to focus on Iran and Palin attracted few links.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Too Much Jackson? Not at the Water Cooler
On Palin, Press Bias Lies in the Eye of the Partisan Beholder
15 Jul 09While many Americans may say he has received too much coverage, Michael remained by far the most talked about news story. Also, on Palin, press bias lies in the eye of the partisan beholder.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Won't Quit on Palin, Jackson
Celebrities Dominate News Agenda
14 Jul 09With the assistance of plenty of media self-examination, two polarizing celebrities drove the news agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Beat It: Jackson Out of Blogosphere
Walkman and Pitchman Shove King of Pop Aside Online
9 Jul 09Unlike the traditional press, social media moved beyond Michael Jackson last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

King of Pop Remains on Top
8 Jul 09Though Jackson was most watched, many still had time to hear plenty about Mark Sanford's "love story."
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Wilted Green Shoots
8 Jul 09The number of Americans hearing mostly negative economic news has been steadily rising since May, especially among independents.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
8 Jul 09While wars and political battles raged on, Jackson -- driven by TV coverage -- continued to lead the media agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Deaths of Michael Jackson and "Neda" Grip the Blogosphere
2 Jul 09In life, Michael Jackson and Neda Agha-Soltan had little in common. But together their deaths consumed the blogosphere and became emblematic of the flow and character of modern communication.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Too Much Michael?
1 Jul 09The public closely tracked the sudden death of pop superstar Michael Jackson last week, though nearly two-in-three Americans say news organizations gave the story too much coverage.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

From Protests to Pop
30 Jun 09The media swung their attention from the protests in Iran to the death of Michael Jackson with stops at Gov. Sanford and Farah Fawcett along the way.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

140 Characters of Protest
25 Jun 09The unrest in Iran has demonstrated as never before the power and influence of social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Iran's Interesting... For a Foreign Story
24 Jun 09The share of the public following the situation in Iran ranks near the top of recent international stories, excluding those directly involving the U.S., rivaling interest in the economy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Iran's Revolutionary Coverage
23 Jun 09A substantial amount of mainstream press coverage of Iran discussed the impact of social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Political Extremism (at Home and Abroad) Dominates the Blogosphere
19 Jun 09Two events in the last week triggered an online debate about political extremism—one in Europe and one in Washington D.C. And the most-viewed news video on YouTube was the start of a feud between David Letterman and Sarah Palin.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Job Situation is Bad News
17 Jun 09While Americans say they are hearing more of a mix of good and bad news about prices, financial markets and real estate, news about jobs is seen as overwhelmingly bad.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Vote Uncovers Forgotten Story: Iran
16 Jun 09Until last week, Iran had attracted less than half the media attention devoted to the threat posed by teenage Somali pirates this year.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Shooting Sparks Abortion Debate Online
11 Jun 09Discussions surrounding the murder of George Tiller far outpaced Obama's Cairo speech and the economy online.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Different Stories, Different Audiences
Coverage of Obama Seen as Largely Fair
11 Jun 09Four-in-ten of those who watch Fox News regularly say that coverage of Obama has not been critical enough.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama's Trip Spotlights Middle East
Sotomayor Fades from the Headlines
9 Jun 09The president's speech focused attention on subjects -- Iraq, Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- which had received relatively little coverage this year.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Same-Sex Marriage Continues Blog Dominance
4 Jun 09Gay marriage has bubbled up again and again online in a debate often missing from the mainstream media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

First Impressions of Sotomayor Mostly Positive
Press Coverage of Nomination Seen as Fair
4 Jun 09While a plurality of Americans say coverage of the nomination has been fair, Republicans are significantly more likely to say it has not been critical enough.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Sotomayor, and Race, Drive the News
40% of the Stories About the Judge Referenced Her Ethnicity
2 Jun 09Sotomayor was the first person to exceed Obama as the lead newsmaker since his inauguration; 40% of the stories about Sotomayor's nomination referenced her ethnicity.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

California, Rappers and Fossils
29 May 09The conversation online looks nothing like the mainstream media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Not That Into Terror Debate
Too Much Steroids and Flu News, Not Enough Pakistan
28 May 09While the media may love a political fight, Americans say they are following stories about money and health.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Global Pandemic, Global Coverage
28 May 09Turns out that coverage of the swine flu in the U.S. was actually less sensationalized than was media coverage in some other major nations.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Beltway Battle Bumps Economy
27 May 09With a political-conflict narrative, terrorism -- almost untouched by the media last year -- has supplanted the recession as the top story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Online Classifieds Climb
22 May 09The number of online adults to use classified ad websites, such as Craigslist, more than doubled from 2005 to 2009 devastating a key revenue source for traditional newspapers .
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Tortured Debate Online
21 May 09The polarizing issue of what defines torture again dominated social media last week but bloggers also focused on a Saudi judge's slap at women shoppers.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Car Dealership Closings Draw Wide Attention
"American Idol" Still Gets Nation's Vote
20 May 09News about the car dealership closings is as big as last fall's bank failings. Also, who watches "Idol"?
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Politics Punctuate the Terrorism Debate
Pelosi and Cheney Help Fuel the Narrative
19 May 09The story was especially dominant on the ideological, debate-oriented talk shows on radio and prime-time cable.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Wide-Ranging Conversation Online
14 May 09While the mainstream media agenda was dominated by the economy and flu, bloggers talked up gay marriage, e-readers and botched photo-op.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees Less Glum News About Economy
Swine Flu Interest High But Flagging
13 May 09Gender gaps emerge on top stories. Men follow the economy and Manny; women prefer the flu and first face transplant operation.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Feed an Economy, Starve a Flu
12 May 09With the virus no longer so deadly, the press turned to financial and foreign-policy fears.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Pig Flu and Politics Clog the Blogs
8 May 09Bloggers last week debated whether the worldwide swine flu outbreak was a serious public health menace or a case of excessive media hype. And Arlen Specter’s change of parties stirred a partisan debate over the state of the GOP.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Virus Goes Viral Online
Local TV Top Spot for Learning about Disease
6 May 09While most Americans are turning to TV to learn about the swine flu, the internet ranks as the leading source for "useful" information.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Big Stories Fall to Flu Fever
5 May 09Obama's 100th day, a political earthquake, a Supreme Court retirement and more bad news for Detroit should have all been major media events, but none withstood the onslaught of swine flu.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Two Hot Topics Heat Up the Net
1 May 09While stories about torture and gay marriage both stirred passions, the pattern of responses in social media was very different.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Coverage:Too Personal but Not Too Favorable
Majorities Say Right Amount on Leadership and Policies
29 Apr 09Most Americans say the news media has devoted too much coverage to Barack Obama's family and personal life, but the right amount to his leadership style and policy proposals.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Metric: Obama's 100 Days of Press
More Positive Coverage than Clinton or Bush
28 Apr 09Obama is getting much more positive press coverage than Bush or Clinton. One reason is that he is getting good reviews in both front-page stories and editorials.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tea Party Protests, Pirates & Puppies
24 Apr 09Unlike past weeks, social media looked a lot like the mainstream media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Fox News Stands Out as "Too Critical" of Obama
No One Network Singled Out as Too Easy
22 Apr 09Top newsmakers included an allegedly murderous Sunday school teacher, a highly placed dog, a startling new singing sensation and a retiring sportscaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Stock in Economic Story Drops
Tea Parties: Fox News vs. MSNBC
21 Apr 09As news about the economy gets modestly better the story is attracting less press than it did when things seemed more dire. "Tea parties" Rorschach test for media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs, Not Press, Feature Gay Marriage Story
Same-Sex Marriage was No. 1 for Social Media but No. 15 for Traditional Media
17 Apr 09Bloggers devoted far more attention to same-sex marriage than any other story with most applauding the legislative gains for gay couples.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Most Now Say News Paints Mixed Economic Picture
Many Follow Somali Pirate Story
15 Apr 09Far more Republicans hearing at least some good economic news.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Pirates Capture Media
14 Apr 09Press coverage of the economic meltdown hit a record low for the year last week. Pirate drama was the No. 1 story online, in network TV, radio news and cable news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Ditch Recession Talk
April Fools' Joke No. 1 Online Story
10 Apr 09None of the top online stories registered in the top-10 list for the traditional media last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Trip Closely Followed
More Women Than Men Track Royal Visit
8 Apr 09Obama's trip to the G-20 summit got a good deal more attention than Bush's first international summit travel in 2001.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Follow Obama, Economy to Europe
Michelle Obama Was the No. 2 Newsmaker of the Week
8 Apr 09The president's trip abroad gives an international flavor to a now familiar story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs: Mixing Tough News with Escapism
3 Apr 09While pressing public policy dominated the blogs, the No.2 story online involved a secretly painted 60-foot image of a male body part.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Little Sign of Obama Fatigue
Republicans Say Press Too Easy; Dems, Independents Say Fair
2 Apr 09In contrast to the campaign, only a third say they are hearing too much about Obama. But there are wide partisan differences on perceptions of his media coverage.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Geithner's Plan: From Goat to Godsend
31 Mar 09AIG rage was replaced -- at least for a week -- by media praise for a previous economic "villain's" bank plan.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Online Journalists Optimistic About Revenue, Concerned About Quality
30 Mar 09Internet journalists see a revenue path on the web, but also say the internet is changing journalism mostly for the worse.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs Can't Escape AIG
27 Mar 09Though new media often diverges from the traditional press, reaction to the AIG bonuses united the two.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

AIG Taxes Broadly Supported
Echoes of Dubai Ports Deal
25 Mar 09Most Americans found the media attention the AIG received appropriate and a majority supports Congress' response to tax the bonuses.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

For the Media, AIG Is All the Rage
24 Mar 09Last week, the narrative for a complex economic crisis got much simpler. The coverage focused on one corporate villain and one angry public.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

An End to Religion, Newspapers and the American Way of Life
20 Mar 09While the traditional press focused on economic villains, bloggers largely eschewed partisan squabbling and parsing of details for a more abstract and far-reaching discussion.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees More of a Mix of Good and Bad Economic News
Stewart-Cramer Registers Less than Rihanna-Chris Brown
18 Mar 09Though the economy remains the top story, more Americans say they heard a lot about the reports of Chris Brown abusing Rihanna than the dispute between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Match: Cramer vs. Stewart
17 Mar 09Press focus turned to the hunt for people or institutions embodying the excess that contributed to the financial system's unraveling.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Religion in the News: 2008
16 Mar 09Religion reporting in 2008 clustered around big events such as the pope's visit and stories tended to fade quickly from the headlines. Coverage gravitated toward controversies such as Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright and clergy sex-abuse scandals.
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

State of the News Media 2009
An Annual Report on American Journalism
16 Mar 09Even before the recession, the fundamental question facing journalism was whether the news industry could win a race against the clock for survival. In the last year, two important things happened that have effectively shortened the time left on that clock. Some of the numbers are chilling.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Stop the Presses? Many Americans Wouldn't Care a Lot if Local Papers Folded
12 Mar 09Fewer than half say losing their local paper would hurt severely civic life; even fewer say they would miss reading it a lot.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Get on Dow Rollercoaster
Limbaugh No. 2 Newsmaker of the Week
10 Mar 09Last week marked the fourth time in four weeks that a different component of the economic crisis was the top storyline.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Divisions over Obama; Solidarity on OJ
6 Mar 09Those not arguing about the popularity of the president blogged to save an iconic brand.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

States' Budget Woes Register With Public
Republicans Increasingly Critical of Obama
5 Mar 09Interest in Obama’s speech to Congress was comparable to interest in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union, in which he made his case for war with Iraq.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obamanomics: No Deficit in Press
Endgame in Iraq Not Big News
4 Mar 09A developing media meta narrative focused on the president's high stakes overhaul of domestic priorities implicit in his budget proposals.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Truth over Happiness
27 Feb 09Will Americans listen only to Happy Talk from a president? Here's what the record shows.
Pew Research Center

Facebook About-Face
27 Feb 09While the economy dominated conversation online, a good many bloggers focused on a policy change made and then withdrawn at Facebook, a demonstration of the power of social media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Newspapers Face a Challenging Calculus
Online Growth, but Print Losses are Bigger
26 Feb 09The growth in readership online has not offset the decline in print for newspapers.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Many Say Government on Right Track on Economy
Some Harsh Words for Wall Street
26 Feb 09An increasing number of Americans say the government's action on the economy is on the right track.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Supply & Demand: Crisis Eclipses All Other News
24 Feb 09With the stimulus passed, the media moved to other economic horror stories: foreclosures, the auto industry and bailouts.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

It's Time to Link to the Muppets
20 Feb 09While the economy was far and away the most discussed topic online, many sought refuge in Kermit, Fozzie and other Jim Henson creations.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

On the Economy, Bad News Better Than No News
Stimulus Passage Tops News Coverage and Interest
19 Feb 09Americans overwhelmingly feel better knowing what's going on even if it's bad news, but significantly more now say that reports about the economy have some good sides.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Press Pivot: Vote and Polls Change Tone
18 Feb 09Obama may not control the message, but he still controls the agenda.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Stimulating Debate Online
13 Feb 09New and old media diverged on their stimulus package coverage, with many pundits in the traditional press debating political impact and new media types advocating for or against the package.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Stimulus News Seen as More Negative Than Positive
Too Much Coverage of Phelps, Octuplets
11 Feb 09Most Americans are following the debate over the stimulus package closely but many want to hear more information on the specifics of the proposals.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The New Face of Washington's Press Corps
As Mainstream Media Decline, Niche and Foreign Outlets Grow
11 Feb 09The corps of journalists covering Washington D.C. at the dawn of the Obama administration is not so much smaller as it is dramatically transformed. And that transformation will markedly alter what Americans know and not know about the new government, as well as who will know it and who will not.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The First 10 or So Days
10 Feb 09Less than three weeks into the new administration, many among the media talking-heads were declaring it a failure, one asking if it was the roughest debut in recent presidential history.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blogs an Outlet for Economic Outrage
6 Feb 09Story of zombie road sign competes with politics and economic news on web.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Policy Issues Overshadow Personal Stories in Obama's First Weeks
Broad Public Awareness of Coming Digital TV Transition
4 Feb 09The public focused much more on President Obama’s stimulus plans than on his successful bid to keep his Blackberry. Also, fully eight-in-ten say they have heard a lot about the coming switch to digital TV.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Reality Bites: Economy Fouls Mood
4 Feb 09Almost as unprecedented as the historic coverage of Obama's inauguration was the media's quick pivot to questioning the efficacy of his stimulus package, political clout and pledge of bipartisanship.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Limbaugh Holds onto his Niche -- Conservative Men
3 Feb 09While Rush’s syndicated radio show does not have the reach of other conservative favorites like Bill O’Reilly’s television program, his audience is by far the most conservative of any program or network tested by a Pew Research survey. It was also the most male.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Bloggers Ponder Every Aspect of Obama's Inauguration
30 Jan 09From the preparations to the swearing-in to the music, President Barack Obama’s inauguration was by far and away the dominant subject debated and dissected by bloggers, user news sites and other social media last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Inauguration Outdraws Interest in Economy
Public Says Media Fair in Obama Coverage
28 Jan 09
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama's Inaugural Week: Heavy Media Focus Turns from Symbols to Substance
28 Jan 09Thanks to nearly non-stop coverage of an historic inauguration, the new Obama administration dominated the agenda. The leading storyline was the pomp and circumstance of the inauguration itself. But that was a multi-layered narrative that involved everything from the logistics of handling two million spectators to the extensive analysis of his address.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Plane Crash Draws as Much Interest as Economy
23 Jan 09Among domestic airline and train accidents of recent years, only one -- the deadly crash of TWA flight 800 off the coast of New York in 1996 -- attracted significantly greater public interest than the dramatic emergency landing of US Airways flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

As Obama Takes Office, Global Press Turns to Regional Concerns
22 Jan 09The celebratory tone that characterized international media coverage of Barack Obama’s historic election victory was again pervasive in many of the stories about his inauguration. However, many newspapers noted the more somber tone of Obama’s speech, and were themselves relatively somber about the enormous challenges and inflated expectations facing the new president.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Obama Cabinet Appointees Highly Visible
Unemployment Figures Draw Broad Attention
15 Jan 09Much of the increased awareness of the president-elect’s high-level personnel selections has to do with his choice of Hillary Clinton to serve as secretary of state.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Shift from War to Washington
13 Jan 09Even as the fighting in Gaza continued to generate major coverage, the storyline shifted back to the daunting tasks confronting incoming President Barack Obama.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mideast Competes With Economy and Obama for Public Interest
Press Viewed as ‘Fair’ to Bush and Obama
8 Jan 09Public interest in the Middle East conflict is on par with other recent foreign news stories, but is lower than in the Israel-Hezbollah war in August 2006. A slightly greater percentage say the media have not been critical enough of Hamas than say the same about coverage of Israel (30% vs. 25%, respectively).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

War in Gaza Quickly Shifts News
Media Themselves Became Another Front in Middle East War
7 Jan 09A bloody new chapter in the Israel/Palestinian conflict dramatically shifted the news agenda from domestic to foreign crises, dominating media attention in an otherwise crowded week of news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Outlet
23 Dec 08The internet, which emerged this year as a leading source for campaign news, has now surpassed all other media except television as a main source for national and international news. While the 2008 presidential campaign attracted high levels of public attention, the economy was the top story of the year in terms of news interest, according to Pew’s Weekly News Interest Index. In late September, as the nation’s financial crisis deepened, 70% said they were following news about the economy very closely. That ranks among the highest levels of news interest for any story in the past two decades.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Christmas Present -- No Story Eats the News
23 Dec 08As 2008 draws to a close, last week’s media’s attention was divided more than at any point this year. The economy and Barack Obama’s transition were still among the top stories. But scandals involving the Illinois Governor and a world-famous financial figure, along with the continuing struggles of the U.S. auto industry, also competed for coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Blagojevich Arrest Grabs Public Attention
18 Dec 08Only the congressional check bouncing scandal of 1992 -- in which members of Congress were investigated for overdrawing their office checking accounts -- and the initial Clinton-Lewinsky allegations in 1998 rated higher in terms of public interest than the Blagojevich bribery charges.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blagojevich Framed as Obama's First Crisis
16 Dec 08The scandal involving Illinois Gov. Blagojevich became 2008's biggest weekly story not related to the election or economy -- topping both the Russia-Georgia war and NY Gov. Spitzer's prostitution scandal -- and siphoning off attention from the week's other big stories.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Good News for the Administration
Economic News Dominates Coverage and Interest
11 Dec 08A majority of Americans says news stories about the incoming administration are mostly positive. Republicans are hearing more mixed reports.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

News of Obama’s Team Linked with Mounting Challenges They’ll Face
9 Dec 08With desperate automakers asking Congress for $34 billion, Barack Obama unveiling key Cabinet members, and the U.S. scrambling to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, the three top storylines in the news intertwined last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Watching the White House Take Shape
Michelle Obama Coverage Seen as Positive
25 Nov 08The economy is still No. 1 in news interest, but Americans are also paying close attention to Obama’s cabinet and staff selections. While less attention has been paid to personal matters -- like the first family’s new puppy -- news about Michelle Obama is now seen by the public as mostly positive, a sharp contrast to the perceived negativity over the summer.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Shifting Gears: Auto Bailouts and the Obama Transition Lead the News
25 Nov 08Although no other media stories came close to rivaling the economy’s troubles and the emerging face of the incoming administration, one other story drew sensational coverage: piracy on the high seas.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Media Cover Health
24 Nov 08At a time when health care is a major public policy issue, a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Project for Excellence in Journalism examines the extent to which health news has been a part of the national news agenda including coverage of the 2008 presidential primary campaign.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Detroit’s Troubles Driving Attention to Economy, Bailout Opposition Rises
Diminishing Support for Government Bailout Plan
20 Nov 08With the presidential election behind them, Americans have turned their attention back to the nation’s economy, though nearly half say they feel angry when seeing or hearing such reports.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Never-Ending Story: Palin and Hillary Still Making News
18 Nov 08The country’s weakened economy rivaled the presidential transition as top story of the week while much coverage focused on two women who ran losing campaigns for the executive branch.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Global Media Celebrate Obama Victory -- But Cautious Too
A Changed View of American Democracy
13 Nov 08"GOBAMA!" gushed Britain's Daily Mirror the day after Barack Obama's electoral victory. Other newspapers around the world were scarcely less enthusiastic but notes of concern and discord were also registered.
Pew Global Attitudes Project

Few Will Miss Campaign News
Public's Favorite -- and Least Favorite -- Campaign Journalists
12 Nov 08The 2008 campaign set records for interest and will long be remembered (in fact, 23% of Americans are saving a post-election newspaper), but fully 82% of Americans will have no problem taking election news out of their lives. Also, Bill O’Reilly comes in as American’s favorite -- and least favorite -- campaign commentator.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Moment: History, Trends and Transition Dominate News Coverage
11 Nov 08When the campaign was finally over, the media almost immediately viewed Barack Obama's victory as a transformational event, and a subject that had been in some ways taboo moved front and center - race.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Election Weekend News Interest Hits 20-Year High
Top Events of Campaign 2008
6 Nov 08Fully 60% of voters followed campaign news very closely this weekend, the highest level of interest on the eve of an election since the Pew Research Center began tracking campaign news interest in 1988. Throughout the campaign, Americans said they were hearing more about Obama than about McCain, although analysis shows news coverage became closely balanced between the two candidates.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Strategy Session: Media Focused on Polls and Maps in Final Week
4 Nov 08If ever there is a time when campaigns are horse races, it is in the final days, and coverage was indeed largely about the contest itself.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News
Continuing Partisan Divide in Cable TV News Audiences
31 Oct 08Television remains the dominant source, but the percent of people who say they get most of their campaign news from the internet has tripled since 2004.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Palin Fatigue Now Rivals Obama Fatigue
SNL Appearance, Wardrobe Flap Register Widely
30 Oct 08Sarah Palin's new wardrobe caught the public's eye but media coverage focused far more on the presidential candidates. Still, more Americans say they've been hearing too much about Palin than say they've heard too much about Obama.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Color Of News: How Different Media Have Covered the General Election
29 Oct 08When it comes to coverage of the campaign for president 2008, where one goes for news makes a difference, according to a new study.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Swing States Sway Campaign Media
28 Oct 08In the final days of the race for president, seemingly nothing but the algebra of the electoral map appears to have staying power.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Most Voters Say News Media Wants Obama to Win
"Joe the Plumber" a Top Campaign Story
22 Oct 08By a margin of 70%-9%, voters say most journalists want to see Obama, not McCain, win on Nov. 4. Since 1992, voters have consistently believed the media favor the Democratic candidate, but this year's margin is especially wide.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Canvassing Campaign Media: An Analysis of Time, Tone and Topics
22 Oct 08Coverage of the presidential race has not so much cast Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Polls and Plumbers Drive Narrative
21 Oct 08Campaign coverage increasingly focused on tactics -- including McCain's invocation of an Ohio plumber to represent the working man - as well as fights in battleground states and the parade of polls.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Campaign Seen As Increasingly Negative
McCain Ads Seen as Less Truthful
16 Oct 08The campaign received more media coverage than the financial crisis for the first time in a month, but nearly two-thirds of Americans (63%) list either economic conditions or the stock market drop as the single news story they followed more closely than any other last week.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Campaign Tactics and Tone Trump Economy in Media Narratives
15 Oct 08For the first time in a month, the election generated more coverage than the financial crisis and almost one-third of that coverage was connected to the increasingly harsh tone of the campaign.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Who Knows News? What You Read or View Matters, but Not Your Politics
15 Oct 08Where you turn for news may say a lot about how much you actually know. So who scores higher on a political knowledge quiz? Hardball or Hannity & Colmes? Newspapers or network news? Stewart or Colbert?
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blaming the Messenger: A Continuum of Press Condemnation
10 Oct 08From Jefferson to Palin, politicians of the left and right have blamed the media for public discontent with their policies, politics or personal behavior.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Beat the Press: Many Say Press has Been Too Tough on Sarah Palin
Positive Ratings for Coverage of Financial Crisis
9 Oct 08While strong majorities feel the press has been fair to John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as many people say the press has been too tough on the governor of Alaska (38%) as say it has been fair (38%). Republicans overwhelmingly believe the press has been too hard on Palin (63%).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Did Campaign Coverage Move off the Economy? You Betcha!
7 Oct 08Though the economic crisis dominated general news coverage, the vice presidential debate drove the campaign narrative as Sarah Palin received the most attention of the four candidates.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Coverage Centers on Volatility in Economy and McCain Campaign
Week's Drama Highlighted Uneasy Mix between National Crisis and Politics
30 Sep 08The week drama's suggested that a national crisis and campaign for president do not easily mix and the candidate who tried harder to seize the moment may have had the tougher week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Assessing the Debate: A Media/Public Disconnect?
30 Sep 08Political pundits, seeing no knockout punch, scored a tie. But viewers awarded the win to Obama.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

McCain's Image Falls as Economic Worries Rise; Public Awaits Debate
25 Sep 08Independents' views of McCain have become significantly less favorable in the last few days, but they still expect him to win the coming foreign policy debate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Financial Fallout Pops Palin Media Bubble, Drives Campaign Coverage
23 Sep 08Wall Street's meltdown raised the possibility that the economy may become the decisive factor in the November election.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Media Has Handled Palin's Faith
22 Sep 08Coverage of her religious background and beliefs has often been a peripheral element in the story.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Views of Palin Fluid as Spotlight Remains on GOP Ticket
Public Sees Obama Ads Getting More Negative
18 Sep 08Sarah Palin continued to be a dominant factor in presidential campaign coverage last week, but her impact on the race remains unclear and her public image is very much in flux.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Palin Comparison: Half of Campaign Storylines Revolve around GOP VP
16 Sep 08For the second week in a row, the GOP vice presidential hopeful got more coverage than the man atop the ticket, John McCain. Yet this measure does not fully convey the Palin-centric nature of the news coverage.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Online News: Should You Be Reading This at Work?
15 Sep 08The internet is allowing Americans to stay constantly informed about the news of the day -- on the company dollar - regardless of whether keeping up-to-date is important to their job.
Pew Research Center

JohnMcCain.com v. BarackObama.com
15 Sep 08With roughly seven weeks left until Election Day, which candidate has the edge online, and how so? A new study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism finds both campaigns' official sites are now quite advanced.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

McCain's Image Improves - With Big Assist From Palin
Palin Press Coverage: Fair and Important
10 Sep 08While the GOP ticket leader's speech received only modest reviews, his running mate's address was viewed as the highlight of the Republican convention and helped boost McCain's public image overall. However, many in the public still question Palin's qualifications.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Northern Exposure: Palin Dominates Campaign Coverage
McCain Finally Gets More Coverage Than Obama, But Couldn't Top His VP
9 Sep 08For the first time since the general election campaign began, John McCain generated more coverage than Barack Obama. But he was still outshone by another newsmaker -- his own running mate.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

After Busy Week, Views of Both Candidates Improve
High Marks for Obama's Speech
3 Sep 08As attention to the campaign increased substantially last week, the images of both Barack Obama and John McCain improved. Reviews of Obama's acceptance speech were overwhelmingly positive. Among those who could rate it, nearly half (48%) rated the speech excellent and another 36% rated it good.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Denver and Palin Fuel Biggest Campaign Week Yet
3 Sep 08Campaign coverage filled 69% of the overall newshole last week, by far the most media attention the 2008 election has received since PEJ began tracking it in January 2007. The Democratic convention dominated news early, but McCain's unexpected VP pick abruptly changed the subject. In just two days of tracking, Sarah Palin became the third biggest campaign story of the week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Podcasts Proliferate, But Not Mainstream
19% of Internet Users Have Downloaded a Podcast
28 Aug 08Nearly one in five internet users (19%) has downloaded a podcast to listen to or view later -- up from 12% in 2006. But podcasting has yet to become a fixture in the everyday lives of internet users, as very few download podcasts on a typical day.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Convention Buzz: A Split Decision
28 Aug 08An examination of political websites shows the Clinton team and the Obama team sharing equal billing in online chatter about the Democratic National Convention.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Background Better Known Than His Issue Positions
Biden Pick a Top Campaign Event
27 Aug 08As Obama accepts the Democratic Party's nomination for president in Denver, more than six-in-ten Americans say they know a lot or a fair amount about his background, but only about half are familiar with his policies.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

It's All Veepstakes All the Time
26 Aug 08In a week that culminated with Senator Joe Biden's selection as Barack Obama's running mate, the veepstakes dominated the campaign narrative, shunting other storylines -- particularly policy differences -- to the sidelines.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Media's Olympics
25 Aug 08The Olympic Games trailed only the presidential race for media attention during their two-week run. There was little competition over who was the star of the show: Michael Phelps' coverage dwarfed all other American athletes.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

War in Georgia is Bigger News than the Campaign
19 Aug 08Last week marked the first time in nine months that the most covered news story was not the presidential campaign. The Russian-Georgian war led the news and also generated positive coverage for McCain and his aggressive approach to the crisis.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Tracking the Economic Slowdown
18 Aug 08The slowing economy has replaced Iraq as the second most intensely covered story so far in 2008 according to a new study of media content. However, it still trails far behind the presidential campaign.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Key News Audiences Now Blend Online and Traditional Sources
Audience Segments in a Changing News Environment
17 Aug 08For more than a decade, audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined and the number of people getting news online has surged. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press’ biannual media study also finds that a growing number of news consumers mix both old and new sources. The report presents a typology that breaks Americans into four groups: Integrators, Net-Newsers, Traditionalists and the Disengaged.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

China Olympics Earn American Attention, Approval
Scant Attention to War in Georgia
14 Aug 08Most say they are watching at least some of the Olympic coverage and the share saying it was a good decision to hold the games in China has risen 11 points to a 52% majority. Americans also remain optimistic that by the end of the games, the U.S. will have won more gold medals than any other country.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Comeback Kids: Clintons Return to Campaign Coverage
12 Aug 08Last week's major story lines turned more to discord among Democrats, energy policy and the search for vice presidents.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Fatigue - 48% Hearing Too Much About Him
McCain's Ads Seen As Negative, Obama's as Positive
6 Aug 08While John McCain closed the gap in campaign news coverage last week, Barack Obama still enjoyed much more visibility in the eye of the public. But 48% say they've heard too much about the Democratic nominee and a plurality say they've heard too little about his opponent.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Spears and Hilton Raise McCain Coverage Even With Obama
5 Aug 08A spasm of introspection by the media, amid a wave of accusations that they were being unfair to the GOP standard bearer combined with a controversial ad to generate equal coverage of the two candidates.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama's Trip a Top Campaign Event for Public
42% Say Campaign Coverage Biased in Favor of Obama
31 Jul 08Despite a high level of public attention to the Democratic candidate's weeklong tour abroad, most said they learned very little of his foreign policy views as a result of the trip.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama's Trip Consumes Coverage
But not all of the coverage was flattering
29 Jul 08While many media outlets credited Obama with a stylistically successful and largely gaffe-less trip, some questioned whether it actually benefited the candidate.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democrats Highly Critical of New Yorker Cover, Republicans Say It Was Okay
Public Closely Tracking Business News
24 Jul 08Fully four-in-ten Americans heard a lot about a satirical cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker magazine. A majority of those who saw it found it offensive (54%) and few found it funny (27%).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

War Takes Center Stage as Obama (and Media) Move Overseas
23 Jul 08In a week that began with speeches on foreign policy by both candidates and ended with Barack Obama traveling to the Middle East, The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in various dimensions, retook center stage in the campaign for the presidency.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Changing Newsroom: Gains and Losses in Today's Papers
21 Jul 08It has fewer pages than three years ago, the paper stock is thinner, and the stories are shorter. There is less foreign and national news, less space devoted to science, the arts, features and a range of specialized subjects. These are just some of the changes documented in a new report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism that examines the resources in American newsrooms at a critical time.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Candidates' Policy Positions Still Not Widely Known
16 Jul 08Despite extensive media attention to the presidential campaign, relatively few Americans are familiar with either Obama's or McCain's foreign and domestic policy positions.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gaffe Coverage: Jackson Tops Gramm
15 Jul 08Statements by two non-candidates steered the campaign narrative last week, but Jesse Jackson’s derogatory remarks about Obama drew more media attention than did Phil Gramm’s remarks about whiny America.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Faith Factor in the Media's Primary Campaign Coverage
10 Jul 08Despite attention to Obama's former pastor, questions about McCain's relationship with the conservative religious base, interest in Romney's Mormon faith and Baptist preacher Huckabee's strong showing, only 2% of campaign stories directly focused on religion; still that was more than the attention devoted to race and gender combined.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

McCain's Interest Gap
9 Jul 08While Obama and McCain received similar levels of media coverage, Obama remained by far the most visible candidate. Only 11% of Americans cited McCain as the candidate they had heard the most about, while more than seven-in-ten (71%) named Obama.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Heat Wave
9 Jul 08A week of negative election storylines was led by the shake-up in the McCain campaign, Gen. Wesley Clark's comments and questions of patriotism. Thanks in part to his staffing reshuffle, McCain was competitive with Obama in coverage for the first time since Obama clinched his nomination.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

For Public, Oil Prices and Economic News Overshadow Campaign
McCain Remains Much Less Visible than Obama
2 Jul 08Last week marked the largest partisan gap in campaign interest since the start of the presidential race in early 2007. Democrats were almost twice as likely as Republicans to say they followed the campaign very closely (52% vs. 28%).
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Summer Rerun: Media Returns to Coverage of Divided Democrats
Hillary and Bill Clinton combined media coverage equaled McCain's total
1 Jul 08While differences between Barack Obama and John McCain over energy policy played a major role, most of the campaign narrative focused on Democrats' efforts to reunite the party.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Interest in Floods Increases, Still Lower than for '93 Deluge
Government's Response to Floods Faulted
25 Jun 08The public is largely satisfied with the amount of media coverage the Midwest floods have received, but there is much less satisfaction with the federal government's response to the disaster.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Spouse and the President Get Their Media Close-ups
24 Jun 08A key narrative in last week's campaign focused not on Barack Obama and John McCain themselves, but on two people whose public roles reflect crucial challenges facing the candidates--Michelle Obama and George Bush.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Gas Prices Dominate the Public's Economic News Agenda
Fewer Following Midwest Floods than in 1993
19 Jun 08As economic news continues to register at an almost record level with the public, no other issue gets close to the level of attention accorded the price of oil and gas. Fully 72% of Americans say it is the economic or fiscal problem they've heard the most about.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Coverage Turns To Issues
18 Jun 08In a relatively light week of campaign coverage, attention focused on policy differences. Still, a fair amount of attention was also paid to some controversies and gaffes.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

More Hear Negative News About Michelle Obama Than Cindy McCain
Coverage of the Candidates’ Wives
18 Jun 08While opinions about both potential First Ladies are mostly positive, Mrs. Obama has emerged as a more high profile and controversial spouse than Mrs. McCain.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most Americans See a Black Nominee as Important for Country
Partisan and Racial Divisions Over Significance of Obama's Win
11 Jun 08A solid majority say the nomination of an African American for president is important to the country, but racial and partisan divisions exist on the significance of Obama’s historical achievement.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Clinton Question Drives Coverage
Themes around “what does Hillary want” alone accounted for 29% coverage.
10 Jun 08While Obama’s primary win gave him the edge in quantity of coverage, Clinton was the driving force in a media narrative that focused largely on what she would do next.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Many Say Coverage is Biased in Favor of Obama
Primary Wrapup: Even As Obama Controversies Widely Registered
5 Jun 08More of the public heard about controversies related to Obama than other campaign events. Even so, far more Americans believe press coverage has favored him than think it has favored Clinton.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Pivot to November, Iraq Debate
3 Jun 08Campaign coverage was split time last week between the dramatic Democratic primary endgame and the developing general election debate between McCain and Obama on the war in Iraq.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Character and the Primaries of 2008
What Were the Media Master Narratives about the Candidates During the Primary Season?
29 May 08A new analysis of media coverage during the first ten weeks of the 2008 primary season finds the dominant personal narratives about Obama and Clinton were almost identical in tone, and were both twice as positive as negative. The coverage of McCain's character was less positive than that of either Democratic candidate.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Greater Coverage of McCain, But Public Still Focused on Obama
Most Expect Gas Prices To Reach $5 a Gallon or More
28 May 08Fully half of the public said Obama was the candidate they had heard the most about in the news, while only 8% said the same of McCain despite a significant increase in news coverage of his candidacy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Mac's Back in Media Spotlight
The Arizona senator had his highest level of press coverage since week of Super Tuesday
28 May 08After largely being treated as a bystander to the Democrats' contest, the GOP nominee emerged as a featured player in campaign coverage. But that exposure is not always wanted or positive attention.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Cable's Constant Campaign Coverage Out of Sync With Public News Interest
22 May 08While much of the public focused on international events, cable news focused on the campaign almost to the exclusion of other top news stories. Also, though well covered, awareness of John Edwards' endorsement of Obama was relatively low.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Edwards Rewrites the Election Story Line
Almost 40% of coverage reinforced the idea that the Democratic race was over.
20 May 08In embracing Obama less than 24 hours after Clinton’s big win in West Virginia, Edwards diverted media attention away from discussion of renewed Clinton momentum and helped refocused the narrative on Obama’s apparent inevitability.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Says Press Should Not Declare Obama the Winner
14 May 08Fully 72% of the public - including comparable percentages of Democrats, Republicans and independents - say that journalists should not be anointing Obama as the Democratic nominee at this stage in the race.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Media Know Who It's "Gonna Be"
Clinton generated her highest level of coverage this year with calls for her to drop out.
13 May 08In a campaign with more twists than a Twilight Zone episode, the media all but officially pronounced Obama the Democratic nominee last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Daily Show: Journalism, Satire or Just Laughs?
8 May 08An examination of whether America’s 4th-ranked journalist, Jon Stewart, is really the host of a news program.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Pope's Visit Draws Heavy Media Coverage
6 May 08The relationship between the relatively new pope and the hurting U.S. church was the primary story line in news reports of the pontiff's visit.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Wright Stuff: Obama's Pastor Corrals Campaign Coverage
6 May 08Last week, as Obama's controversial minister re-emerged into full public view, the controversy he generated made more news than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democratic Campaign Taking a Toll on Both Obama and Clinton
McCain Stays Under the Radar
1 May 08In four separate surveys conducted since March 20, when asked about each of the Democratic candidates, between 25%-31% of the public has said their opinions have recently become less favorable.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Democrats Division Unites Media
Post-Pennsylvania Spin Drowns Out McCain
29 Apr 08The week of the Pennsylvania primary ended with the prospect of a longer, tougher contest and with the volatile issue of race again occupying a prominent place in the media narrative.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

More Americans View Campaign As Too Negative
Obama's "Bitter" Comment Registers Widely
24 Apr 08Barack Obama's 'bitter' comment registered widely but just 29% of Americans say they paid very close attention to news about the presidential campaign last week, the lowest percentage recorded since December 2007.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

So, Just How Different Is Rupert Murdoch’s New Wall Street Journal?
23 Apr 08A Project for Excellence in Journalism content study finds that, to date, the newly staked out battleground between the Journal and Times seems to be located mostly on the playing field of politics.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Debatable Campaign Coverage
22 Apr 08Last week, a major part of the media narrative about the 2008 campaign involved the media themselves -- specifically ABC’s moderators for the April 16 debate in Philadelphia.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Less News is Good News for McCain
49% Say Network News Anchors Are All About the Same
17 Apr 08While McCain has been consistently less visible to the public, far more Americans say the news they have been hearing about him is generally positive than say the same about coverage of Obama or Clinton.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Network News Signing Off?
Many Journalists See Uncertain Future For Nightly TV Broadcasts and Fault Current Coverage
15 Apr 08Speculation over Katie Couric’s future as anchor of the CBS Evening News has raised the broader question of how long the three nightly network news broadcasts will be able to survive.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

McCain Doesn't Get Most Exposure, But Can't Be "Bitter" About Media
15 Apr 08Renewed attention to Iraq benefited the GOP candidate, while Democrats seemed caught up in a game of gaffe ping-pong, with the media eagerly keeping score.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Campaign News Interest Dips
Awareness of U.S. War Fatalities Rebounds
10 Apr 08With the campaign in a lull, interest, which had consistently surpassed previous presidential contests, is now comparable to the level measured in April 2004.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Clinton Punches, Obama Bowls, McCain Reminisces
8 Apr 08Obama attracted the most coverage, McCain's bio tour earned him headlines, but Clinton generated the clearest story line with her "Rocky" reference.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Clinton Controversy Heavily Covered but Obama Maintains Visibility Edge
Many Say Economic Reporting Too Negative
3 Apr 08While her Bosnia flap made Clinton the newsmaker of the week, she continues to lag behind Obama in terms of public visibility. Both candidates, despite recent negative news, have seen little change in their favorability.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Clinton's Turn in Bad News is Big News
Bosnia Gaffe Makes Her Top Newsmaker After a Week of Dominant Obama Coverage
1 Apr 08In recent campaign media narratives, bad news is big news. Hillary Clinton's oft-repeated story about encountering sniper fire in Bosnia made her last week's top newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Talk Show Hosts Agree Obama Speech Was Boffo Theater but Some See the Script as Unconvincing
28 Mar 08The usually fractious fraternity of talking heads agreed on one thing -- Obama's ability to put words together. They were less unanimous about the content.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Speech on Race Arguably Biggest Event of Campaign
27 Mar 08Fully 85% of Americans say they heard about Obama's speech, and 70% have heard more about him in the last week than any other candidate. The impact of events on Obama's image appears to be mixed.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Why News of Iraq Didn't Surge
26 Mar 08In the history of the Iraq conflict, May 24, 2007 may not go down as a red letter date; but it marked a turning point in media coverage of the third-longest war in U.S. history.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

A Complex Speech Challenges the Media
25 Mar 08For an entire week, political prognosticators and pundits grappled to come to grips with Barack Obama’s sophisticated and mulitlayered address on race relations
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Political Water Cooler Conversation Features Ferraro, Rev. Wright
Spitzer Scandal: Heavy Coverage, Moderate Interest
20 Mar 08Not only are Americans closely following news about Obama's preacher and Clinton surrogates, but an overwhelming majority (84%) are talking about the campaign with family and friends.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Racial Tensions Roil Democrats' Media Narrative
But 'Client 9' Dominated Front Page Coverage
18 Mar 08Maybe the good news for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama last week was that the problems of another Democrat -- Eliot Spitzer -- generated almost as much media attention as they did.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

State of the News Media 2008
17 Mar 08The Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual report finds that the current crisis in journalism may be less the loss of audience than the decoupling of news and advertising. On the upside, some news organizations have become places of risk and innovation with growing connection with audiences.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Financial Woes Overshadow All Other Concerns For Journalists
17 Mar 08A new survey of national and local reporters, producers, editors and executives finds soaring economic woes eclipse traditional worries about quality of coverage and credibility.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Rumors and Red Phones Capture The Public's Political Attention
38% Have Heard a Lot about "Obama's a Muslim" Rumors
13 Mar 08Americans are paying close attention to all aspects of the election this year, but the most widely recognized item involves rumors that Obama is a Muslim.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Clinton Gets Media to Turn Back the Clock
Even in a strong week for Hillary, the narrative turned on questions about Obama.
11 Mar 08In a strong week for Hillary, the narrative turned on questions about Obama’s toughness.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Sees Fair Fight
6 Mar 08Every week since November, 2007, the most covered news story has been the election, and the public has taken notice. Almost half of Americans (47%) listed it as the single news story they were following more closely than any other, up from 10% last November.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Combative Clinton Gets Media to Cover Itself
When Reporters Weren't Vetting Obama, They Were Questioning Their Own Treatment of Him
4 Mar 08
Project for Excellence in Journalism

NY Times' McCain Story Draws Public Interest - And Disapproval
Beef Recall and Failing Satellite Attract Attention
27 Feb 08By a nearly two-to-one margin those familiar with the Times' article on the Arizona senator's ties to a lobbyist think the paper was wrong to publish it.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Democrats Dominate Media on Single Theme: Is Clinton Done?
Controversial New York Times Story Drives Almost All McCain Coverage
26 Feb 08While Obama's apparent frontrunner status claimed most coverage early in the week, the controversial New York Times story put McCain back in the news.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Campaign Seen as Less Negative than 2004 Contest
Gore, Edwards Endorsements Would Have Modest Impact
21 Feb 08The public remains highly engaged in the election, with no increase in campaign fatigue. Also, with the Democratic race still in question, a Gore endorsement would be more influential than one from Edwards.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Obama and Clinton Tie for Coverage, But Barack Wins on Tone
Democratic Race Dominates Presidential Campaign Coverage
20 Feb 08The media narrative for the Democratic presidential race shifted dramatically last week, anointing a definite frontrunner and an underdog.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Obama Inspiring but Inexperienced, Clinton Prepared to Lead but "Hard to Like"
13 Feb 08While Democrats and independents who lean Democratic believe Clinton is prepared to lead, Obama has a clear lead on three positive campaign themes: inspiration, change, and honesty.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Evolving Media Expectations Plaguing All Remaining Candidates
12 Feb 08The presidential campaign again dominated news coverage but the journalistic narratives were not really the ones for which any of the remaining candidates were were probably hoping.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Many Democrats Say Media Tougher on Clinton than Obama
Public Sees Candidates Focusing On Economy
7 Feb 08With campaign coverage dominating (including 76% of the cable newshole), nearly a third of Democrats say the press has been too tough on Clinton while more Republicans say the press has been too easy on McCain than the other candidates.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Where Men and Women Differ in Following the News
6 Feb 08A look at the public's news interests over the past year shows continuing differences between women and men in the types of news stories that they follow very closely.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

McCain Wins the Coverage Battle as Media Move to Anoint Him
4 Feb 08By generating more coverage than any other candidate last week, and easily outdistancing his GOP rivals, Sen. John McCain rode a media narrative of near inevitability last week. Plus, Sen. Ted Kennedy becomes a major newsmaker.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Clinton Finishes Third in Battle for Campaign Coverage (But it's Bill!!!)
29 Jan 08Although Obama's landslide win in South Carolina made him leading newsmaker of the week, he was certainly outdone in the race for media exposure by the Clinton tag team.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Interest Surges in Economic News, Especially the Housing Crisis
24 Jan 08Public interest in economic news reached its highest level in five years. Interest was only somewhat greater during the recession of the early 1990s.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Clinton and Obama Lead Pack Again in Tight Battle for Media Attention
23 Jan 08But, thanks to press fascination with Mike Huckabee, Republicans overall generated more press than Democrats last week.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Top Conservative Talkers Rap Huckabee and McCain
18 Jan 08The most popular conservative voices in talk radio last week seemed to take sides in the crowded Republican presidential field.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Clinton is the Big Winner Last Week in the Race for Coverage
15 Jan 08The resurrection in New Hampshire of John McCain's once-dead campaign did not translate into similar largesse of media attention.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

The Internet's Broader Role in Campaign 2008
11 Jan 08The internet is living up to its potential as a major source for news about the presidential races. Nearly a quarter of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaign from the internet, almost double the percentage at a comparable point in 2004.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Only Half of Public Can Name Both Iowa Winners, but Many Complain of Too Much Media Coverage
10 Jan 08In the wake of his Iowa victory, Barack Obama for the first time supplanted Hillary Clinton as the most visible presidential candidate.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

New Hampshire Teaches News Media a Lesson
10 Jan 08It wasn't quite "Dewey Defeats Truman," but after the Jan. 8 Granite State primary confounded many pollsters and pundits, a key story in coverage of the McCain and Clinton victories was the media's proclivity to predict and pre-analyze the results.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Gas Prices, Disasters Top News Interest in 2007
19 Dec 07Man-made and natural disasters dominated the list of the public's top news stories in 2007 but, as was the case in 2006, the rising price of gasoline attracted the largest audience of any news story.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Iraq Portrait: How the Press Has Covered Events on the Ground
19 Dec 07Through the first 10 months of 2007, the news media's picture of Iraq was painted mostly in bleak colors. But reports about daily attacks declined in late summer and fall, as did the amount of coverage from Iraq overall.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

What Was -- and Wasn't -- On the Public's Mind in 2007
19 Dec 07 A compilation of the top 15 stories in which public opinion played a significant role, and the year's most notable "non-barking dogs."
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Oprah Boosts Obama's Visibility; Republicans Applaud Romney Speech
13 Dec 07Awareness of Winfrey's support for Obama was equally high across parties, genders and racial groups; leading GOP candidates still lag behind Obama and Clinton in public visibility.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Third Quarter News: Terrorism, Tight Credit, and Tragedies
6 Dec 07The threat of terrorism, a real estate recession, and man-made disasters all emerged as major stories in the U.S. news media in the third quarter of 2007, according to a new study of press coverage by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Journalists in Iraq: A Survey of Reporters on the Front Lines
28 Nov 07Journalists covering Iraq -- mostly veteran war correspondents -- give their reporting a generally positive assessment but describe conditions there as the most perilous they have ever encountered.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Iraq News: Less Dominant, Still Important
9 Nov 07Both media coverage of the conflict and public interest in it have fallen, but a growing number of Americans would like to see more war coverage, especially of U.S. troops and returning veterans.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The Invisible Primary - Invisible No Longer
A First Look at Coverage of the 2008 Presidential Campaign
29 Oct 07In the early months of the 2008 campaign, the media had essentially winnowed the race to a handful of candidates and offered Americans relatively little information about their records or what they would do if elected.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Modest Interest in 2008 Campaign News
Democratic Candidates Better Known, Even Among Republicans
23 Oct 07Many more Republicans are able to recall unprompted the names of Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama than can name Rudy Giuliani and other leading GOP candidates.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Political Knowledge Update
Most of the Public Is Familiar with Key Political and Iraq Facts
24 Sep 07Take our updated quiz about prominent people and major events in the news. Then see how you did in comparison with 1,005 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The News You Choose
How User-Driven Content Differs from Mainstream Media
12 Sep 07In a world without journalists, or at least without editors, what would the news agenda look like? A one-week study of a new crop of user-driven news sites by the Project for Excellence in Journalism suggests that the news agenda would be more diverse, more transitory, and often drawn from a very different and perhaps controversial list of sources.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Michael Vick Case Draws Large Audience
Opinions about Media Coverage Show Sharp Racial Divide
28 Aug 07The Atlanta Falcons quarterback's legal troubles were last week's most followed news. Opinions of media coverage of the story showed a sharp racial divide with blacks far more critical than whites.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Who Watches Wall Street?
Interest in the Stock Market Is Currently Relatively High, but Only a Minority of Americans Regularly Follows Financial News
23 Aug 07Interest in the stock market is currently relatively high, but only a minority of Americans regularly follows economic news unless, like gas and food prices, it hits directly on the average pocketbook.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Two Decades of American News Preferences
Part 2: News Interest across Decades and "News Eras"
22 Aug 07In the second of two parts, Pew Research Center consultant Michael Robinson analyzes data from 165 surveys on audience news preferences to examine news interest across decades and describe how the public's news interests have changed -- or not changed -- over different news eras.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Presidential Campaign Overtakes Iraq as Media's Top Story
A Quarterly Report of the PEJ News Coverage Index
20 Aug 07The 2008 Presidential campaign -- with its crowded field and accelerated timetable -- emerged as the leading story in the American news media in the second quarter of 2007, supplanting the policy debate over Iraq.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Two Decades of American News Preferences
15 Aug 07Despite dramatic structural changes in the news media since the 1980s, the interests of news audiences have changed very little over the past several decades. Disaster News and Money News have been at the top of the charts throughout, while Tabloid News and Foreign News have been at the bottom. In this first of two reports, Pew Research Center consultant Michael Robinson analyzes data from 165 surveys on audience preferences taken by the PRC (and predecessor organizations) since 1986.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Internet News Audience Highly Critical of News Organizations
Views of Press Values and Performance: 1985-2007
9 Aug 07Americans continue to fault news organizations for a number of perceived failures. Solid majorities criticize the news media for political bias, inaccuracy and failing to acknowledge mistakes. Some of the harshest indictments of the press come from the growing segment that relies on the internet as its main news source.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Small Audience For Murdoch's Dow Jones Deal, Few Expect Change
9 Aug 07A majority of Americans who are following the story of publisher Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal say the sale will have little or no impact on the quality of the newspaper.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Blames Media for Too Much Celebrity Coverage
Cable and Network TV Worst Offenders
2 Aug 07An overwhelming majority of the public (87%) says celebrity scandals receive too much news coverage; and most who say celebrity news is over-covered blame the media -- not the public.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Publisher Murdoch's U.S. Track Record
30 Jul 07In light of his apparently successful bid to buy Down Jones, what is Rupert Murdoch's record in the American newspaper business?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Hillary Clinton Most Visible Presidential Candidate
Republicans Say Campaign is Being Over-Covered
26 Jul 07Hillary Clinton leads all Democrats with 42% of the public saying they have heard the most about her in the news lately.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Who's Wild About Harry?
So Far, the Public Is More Interested in Buying the Book than in Reading about It
19 Jul 07The latest News Interest Index survey finds that, at least so far, most of the public isn't especially interested in news about the final installment in the Harry Potter series or the release of a new Potter movie; but an astounding number say they plan to buy Deathly Hallows when the book goes on sale on Saturday.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Is the Fairness Doctrine Fair Game?
A PEJ Backgrounder
19 Jul 07The rule requiring broadcasters to balance views aired on controversial subjects was repealed 20 years ago. Yet in recent weeks, debate about the Fairness Doctrine has re-emerged in media circles -- especially on talk radio.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Press Praised for Coverage of China's Product Problem
News Interest Survey Also Finds Public Mostly Relied on Traditional Media to Deliver the iPhone Message
6 Jul 07Most in public call news about safety issues involving Chinese imports accurate and appropriate in amount. Traditional media are also the main source of news about the latest in hi-tech communications: the iPhone.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Iraq Dominates News Landscape in First Half of 2007
Second String Stories Ranged from Politics and Crime to Pet Food and Celebrities, but the Public Stayed Tuned to Casualties and Troop Levels
29 Jun 07So far, the war in Iraq has eclipsed most other 2007news stories. Second string stories ranged from politics and crime to pet food and celebrities, but the public stayed primarily tuned to casualties and troop levels.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Missing in Action: News Coverage of Private Contract Forces in Iraq
Limited, Intermittent Reporting Leaves a Major Story of the War Largely Uncovered
21 Jun 07Extensive reliance in the Iraq conflict on military forces hired by private firms is a significant new element in 21St Century warfare. But what does the American public know about this phenomenon?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Why Change the Channel?
Network News is All the Same, Cable Networks Are More Distinct
20 Jun 07For most of the public, broadcast network news is all the same. Not so cable news: Nearly half the public sees real differences among CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Did Talk Hosts Help Derail the Immigration Bill?
PEJ's Index Finds that in Weeks Preceding the Senate Vote Failure, Immigration was the Second-Most Popular Talk Topic and that Critics of the Legislation Dominated the Airwaves
18 Jun 07PEJ's Talk Show Index finds immigration was the second-most popular topic from May 13-June 8, and airwaves discussion was dominated by hosts opposed to the legislation who often referred to it with the politically damning term "amnesty bill."
Project for Excellence in Journalism

A Spiritual Network in Cyberspace
Beliefnet.com Proves a Successful Model for Combining Journalism and Networking
11 Jun 07If Beliefnet is not exactly a household name, it is an interesting experiment in online journalism. For one thing, its own turbulent history in some ways reflects the trajectory of the internet itself. For another, the strategy it has settled on -- a subject specific site that offers interactivity, networking and journalistic even-handedness -- may offer one working blueprint for the rapidly evolving field of Web information.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Political Divide in Views of Campaign Coverage
Public Wants More Coverage on Issues, Less on Fundraising
1 Jun 07About half the public believes that press coverage of 2008 presidential candidates has been fair, but there are partisan differences in these evaluations. A plurality of Republicans say the press has been too easy on Democratic candidates.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Gas Prices Grab the Public's Attention
Interest in News about Inflation at the Pump Goes Beyond Just Knowing Where to Find the Cheapest Gallon
30 May 07Interest in news about inflation at the pump goes beyond learning where to find the cheapest gallon and extends to impacts on the national economy.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Quarter's Worth of News Coverage
Project for Excellence in Journalism's Analysis Finds Iraq War Coverage Mostly about the U.S., 2008 Presidential Campaign Coverage Mostly about Democrats
25 May 07Three-month review of media finds Iraq coverage was mostly about the U.S., while 2008 campaign coverage was mostly about Democrats.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Growing Up With the News
Most Parents Encourage Teenagers to Follow Current Events, Though Younger Children Are Often Shielded
23 May 07In an era when war, tragedy and scandal often dominate the headlines, America's parents are more likely to encourage children to follow the news than they are to shield them from it.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Who's Watching American Idol?
Relatively Few Worship Regularly at the Top TV Show's Altar
17 May 07In spite of the fact that the show has topped the television ratings throughout the season, as American Idol Season 6 comes to a close the latest news interest survey finds three-quarters of the public paying little or no attention to it.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Chows Down on Pet Food Recall
Only Iraq War Leads in News Interest; Queen and Tenet Lag Far Behind
9 May 07The recall of more than 100 brands of pet food due to possible contamination was the second most closely followed news story last week. Only events in Iraq attracted more public interest.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

The GOP's Invisible Men
Democratic Candidates Dominate the News
2 May 07Heading into their first debate Thursday evening, what Republican candidates for the presidency need most is to gain visibility. The latest News Interest Index survey finds Clinton and Obama are far more visible, even to Republicans.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Blacksburg Tragedy Draws Close Public Attention, but Less Than Columbine Did Eight Years Ago
25 Apr 07Fully 45% of Americans paid very close attention to the Va. Tech shootings but more than two-thirds of Americans (68%) paid very close attention to the Columbine incident in 1999.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Events in Iraq Top Don Imus in News Interest
18 Apr 07The war in Iraq continued to attract broad public attention, despite drawing far less news coverage than the Imus flap. Overall, 26% of Americans cited the war as the story they followed most closely, compared with 20% who followed the Imus story most closely.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Most Say Imus's Punishment Was Appropriate
18 Apr 07A new survey finds that Americans generally agree with the punishment radio host Don Imus received for the racist and sexist remarks he made about the Rutgers University's women basketball team. Nonetheless, there are substantial racial differences in views of Imus's punishment, and the media's coverage of the story.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Assessing the Imus Mess
12 Apr 07Even before Don Imus got the word that MSNBC and CBS had dropped him, a quick survey of the media coverage in the week since the veteran talk host uttered his infamous April 4 racial and gender insult suggests he will face a tough battle to re-establish his reputation and viability.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Iraq Tops News Interest - and Anna Holds Her Own
Despite Media Focus on British Hostages in Iran, War News Draws More Public Attention and Ms. Smith's Autopsy Scores Big
5 Apr 07While the media focused more on British sailors held in Iran and the US attorneys scandal, news from Iraq remains the public's clear priority. The core Anna Nicole Smith audience remains as large as in February, despite far more limited press coverage.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

News Leaks Remain Divisive, but Libby Case Has Little Impact
Unauthorized Disclosures to Media Seen as Motivated More by Personal than Political Reasons
5 Apr 07Attitudes towards news leaks are virtually the same now as in 1986, with the public about evenly split between those who say leaks serve the public interest and those who say they harm it.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Who Do You Trust for War News?
The Public Now Puts Little Confidence in the Descriptions of Iraq Provided by Either the Military or the Press
5 Apr 07Four years into the Iraq war, most Americans say they have little or no confidence in the information they receive -- from either the military or the media -- about how things are going on the ground.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Cruising for News: The State of Digital Journalism
PEJ's Annual State of the Media Report Provides an Interactive Assessment
5 Apr 07The Project for Excellence in Journalism's State of the Media Report provides an interactive tool to help users understand news options available on the Web.
Pew Research Center

State of the American News Media, 2007: Mainstream Media Go Niche
Project for Excellence in Journalism Report Finds Every TV News Component Losing Audience
12 Mar 07The Project for Excellence in Journalism's fourth annual report finds every sector of TV news lost audience in 2006. Newspapers, while garnering larger audiences for their content via online platforms, faced more downbeat financial assessments.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Top Journalists Less Widely Admired Than 20 Years Ago
Fragmented Media Diminishes Prominence of Stars
8 Mar 07Only a slim majority can now name the journalist they admire most and the preferences are scattered across the networks, cable news channels, public television and even Comedy Central.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

A Verdict on the Media's Verdict on the Libby Trial
Not Guilty of Overt Celebration
8 Mar 07The jury has spoken in the perjury and obstruction trial of Scooter Libby that so intimately involved the journalism profession itself. We know the vice-president's former top aide was found guilty. But who and what else did the media implicate in its post-verdict coverage?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Press Described that 400 Point Drop in the Dow
1 Mar 07"Correction" edged out "plunge" as the most used term, according to a Project for Excellence in Journalism search of stories on Google News for Feb. 27 and Feb. 28.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Anna Nicole Audience Praises Press Coverage
1 Mar 07Even though most Americans (61%) think Anna Nicole Smith's death has been over-covered, the press gets high marks from that portion of the public (more than a third) who are following the story closely. Two-thirds of this group rate the coverage as good or excellent – better marks than the press receives from the audiences of any of the other top stories of the past week. This is in line with poll findings about previous tabloid stories: their core audiences think the press does a great job of covering them.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Too Much Anna Nicole, But the Saga Attracts an Audience
Pew Launches Weekly News Interest Index
16 Feb 07Comparisons between Pew's new gauge of public interest in the week's news and the PEJ's News Coverage Index find the public and the press often in agreement about the most important news stories.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Election Newshounds Speak Up
Newspaper, TV and Internet Fans Tell How and Why They Differ
6 Feb 07If you ask political news consumers what they like most about their favorite platform for news, a vivid image of a typical TV, newspaper, and internet political news consumer will emerge from their own comments. All three media forms win praise from their primary fans for their convenience but the context for its definition varies.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Top of the News: Politics, War, and a Crucial Speech
PEJ News Coverage Index: Jan. 21-26, 2007
30 Jan 07One not-so-subliminal message in last week's coverage is that of an increasingly dangerous and destabilizing world.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Iraq Policy Debate Dominates the News
But in a Week of Serious Events, Celebrity Coverage Held Its Own
16 Jan 07In the second week of the new year (January 7-12) Iraq policy filled 34% of the overall newshole and was the top story in all five media sectors -- newspapers, online, network TV, cable and radio.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democrats in Congress Top the Week's News
The Debut of the PEJ News Coverage Index
9 Jan 07The changing of the political guard in Washington, the death of a president and the hanging of a dictator were enough to overshadow the war in Iraq in the American news media last week, according to the inaugural edition of the PEJ News Coverage Index.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

How the Media Did on Election Night
The 2006 campaign, and its climax, marked a transition in the news outlets covering it
27 Nov 06If the mid-term election of 2006 marked a transition in American political life -- the loss by the Republicans of both the House and the Senate -- the campaign also marked a transition in the rapidly changing landscape of the news media covering it.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Back to the Age of Local Publishers?
Hometown ownership stages a return to the newspaper industry
15 Nov 06One major trend of the last year is the emergence of private, local ownership groups returning to a prominent place in the newspaper industry. It appears that in several cities these private interests value newspapers more highly than the publicly traded equity markets.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Rating the Pundits
Which prognosticator was most prescient?
13 Nov 06With each election cycle come more websites and more political predictions. With a Democratic surge apparent and more competitive contests this year, the race among prognosticating pundits was even more intense than usual. Who fared best in the 2006 midterm elections?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Journalists and the Jail Cell
23 Oct 06After declining in the late 1990's, there has been an increase in recent years in the number of journalists sent to prison for not revealing confidential sources. This Project for Excellence in Journalism report documents this trend and analyzes the conflicted public attitudes about the journalistic practice of using confidential sources.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Democrats Hold Solid Lead; Strong Anti-Incumbent, Anti-Bush Mood
14 Sep 06Voters view the coming elections through the prism of national issues and concerns
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

How 9-11 Changed the News
11 Sep 06Coverage of foreign affairs and terrorism soars; domestic issues languish and soft news holds firm.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Katie Couric: Perky and Cute, But Smart, Informed and Liberal, Too
All Three Commercial Evening News Anchors Viewed Positively
24 Aug 06The public has lots of kind words for Katie, Brian and Charles, but just one of the three new network anchors has cornered the market on "perky" and "liberal." Guess who?
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Voters Focus on Domestic Issues, Despite Crises Abroad
17 Aug 06War in Lebanon, widening violence in Iraq and the foiled airline terror plot failed to produce big changes in attitudes toward Israel or President Bush while economic worries continue to dominate the voting agenda.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Cable News: A Maturing Platform with an Uncertain Future
Industry leaders discuss what lies ahead for cable news
14 Aug 06A Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism roundtable brings together a panel of cable news industry leaders. Some predict the medium will adapt to the changing news consumer while others believe dramatic innovations are necessary.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Public Conflicted About Press Reports of Bank Record Monitoring
8 Aug 06Majority says reports hurt interest of American people -- but even bigger majority says they tell citizens something they should know.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

News Magazine Roundtable
The State of the News Media 2006
8 Aug 06In this Project for Excellence in Journalism roundtable discussion, magazine industry experts see change as not only inevitable, but essential if the publications are to continue to survive. But they disagree about just what those changes should entail.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Now in its Adolescence, the Internet Evolves into a Supplementary News Source
1 Aug 06Now, as the internet enters its second decade as a potent new information technology, a study of America's news consumption puts that adolescent's role in the media family into sharper focus and clearer context.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Online Papers Modestly Boost Newspaper Readership
30 Jul 06The biennial news consumption survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that newspapers, which have seen their audience decline in recent decades, are now stemming further losses with the help of their online editions.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Can the 'Dead Tree' Newspaper Survive?
A Roundtable Discussion among industry experts
26 Jul 06In this, the third of the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism roundtables on the future of the news media, six experts from inside the newspaper industry discuss its future, its fate, and the changes it must make to survive.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

A Blogger Portrait
The Internet Has Empowered a New Class of Commentators Eager to Share Personal - Much More Than Political - Views
19 Jul 06A new, national phone survey of bloggers finds that most are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

Radio News Roundtable
The State of the News Media 2006
19 Jul 06Where does audio (or radio) lie on the fragmenting old media vs. new media spectrum? Can this medium, with its long, rich history, evolve to fit a changing information universe, or is it an endangered species?
Project for Excellence in Journalism

A Small Boost for Bush
Views of Iraq Improve
22 Jun 06Americans are more optimistic about the U.S. achieving its goals in Iraq.
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

50 Million Americans Get News Online Every Day
22 Mar 06Many broadband users now say the internet is a main news source, surpassing even TV and papers, according to the Pew Internet Project.
Pew Internet & American Life Project

State of the News Media
Tough Times for Print Journalism - and In-Depth Reporting
14 Mar 06As audiences shift to new online media, print's problems have accelerated. But newspapers can still avoid a death spiral, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Project for Excellence in Journalism

Mapping the Political Landscape 2005
1 Sep 05The Center's report offers a richly textured portrait of the American electorate, including a new analysis of 2004 election returns that reveals the congruence between where people live and how they vote.
Pew Research Center

Trends 2005
20 Jan 05The first publication of the Pew Research Center explores American public opinion and values, religion and public life, media, the Internet, Hispanics, the states and global opinion.
Pew Research Center